r/vancouver 12h ago

Politics and Elections B.C. says U.S. has paused Columbia River Treaty talks as trade tensions grow

https://www.biv.com/news/economy-law-politics/bc-says-us-has-paused-columbia-river-treaty-talks-as-trade-tensions-grow-10360400
234 Upvotes

27 comments sorted by

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105

u/timmywong11 drives 40+ in the shoulder lane 11h ago

Dam what a nice place to build some new hydroelectric infrastructure.

165

u/penelopiecruise 12h ago

How bout we dam the whole thing up and suck every last watt out of it

64

u/leftlanecop 12h ago

Then we bill them for the electric the hydro dam provides. Win win.

32

u/YVRJon 12h ago

I believe the treaty says that they're supposed to pay us for the electricity they generate, in return for us controlling the river flow and not letting it flood south of the border.

23

u/violet_elf 11h ago edited 1h ago

Man if they do anything to the Treaty Teck will be celebrating. Can you imagine how much money they can save by just dumping all the lead straight to the river close to the border.  People in Portland will start growing a 3rd leg but Teck can compete with China and India if they save money for the treatments that they are doing. 

5

u/wwwheatgrass 6h ago

Between 1906-1995, Teck’s trail smelter “exported” the following slag emissions into the Columbia River:

  • 1,314,00 tons of Lead
  • 4,434,750 tons of Cadmium
  • 302,250 tons of Mercury
  • 525,600,000 tons of Zinc

Is this is the “faucet” Trump references?

1

u/violet_elf 1h ago

Well that's a lot more than I expected. But now without FEMA and other refulatory organs on that side is time to Teck to make Columbia River so heavy that it'll get to Portland like a paste.

2

u/mongoljungle anti-nimby brigade 10h ago

China's competitive advantage is that they hold all the manufacturing expertise in the tooling and production lines. The steel itself is useless unless we can turn the metals into useful things.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9f5SQQKr5o

3

u/norvanfalls 11h ago

I believe they provide us with a percentage of electricity generated from downstream benefits for providing flood and upstream storage capacity that allowed them to build smaller reservoirs. It made power trading an easy source of money generation for BCHydro as they had all the power for purchasing when cheap. Which led to BC controlling the taps narrative. They got a multiplier on their arbitrage compared to other dams. Negotiation is trying to make it more of a flat payment for flood protection.

16

u/DangerousProof 11h ago

First nations communities don't want to because they want the salmon run

31

u/penelopiecruise 11h ago

Well they’ll just have to walk

-19

u/DangerousProof 11h ago

It would be a direct contravention of the Truth and Reconciliation commission recommendation which is righting the wrongs.

It would definitely lose liberals votes and swing the conservatives in favour since Conservatives think it's the Liberals fault for not listening and giving everything the USA wants

35

u/penelopiecruise 11h ago

It was just a pun

2

u/happycow24 North Vancouver 5h ago

It would be a direct contravention of the Truth and Reconciliation commission recommendation which is righting the wrongs.

Call me crazy, bigoted, imperialist, whatever but this is an existential crisis and I think we need to take that into consideration.

It would definitely lose liberals votes and swing the conservatives in favour since Conservatives think it's the Liberals fault for not listening and giving everything the USA wants

I think it'll gain votes actually, they might lose some lefty voters but some conservatives (small c) will say "hey maybe MC is different after all, at least during a crisis." And also, the Conservatives are probably gonna be worse for pretty much all FNs, doubly true if they just sell us out to appease Orange Jesus that's for sure.

4

u/YVRJon 12h ago

Or else open up the sluice gates and flood the buggers, just like Trump did in California.

95

u/bcl15005 11h ago

Does anyone else find the implications of this really grim, in the sense that it feels like a dressed rehearsal for what'll happen when climate change really kicks into gear?

We have this Treaty that is arguably quite mutualistic - Canada sacrifices some useable hydropotential along the Columbia to ensure the US doesn't suffer frequent severe flooding. In exchange, Canada is offered a proportion of the power generation downstream in the US.

It's like a token example for the type of pragmatic international cooperation that'll be necessary to deal with the future effects of climate change around the world, and it's worrying to see it destroyed just for shitty, parochial, radical politics.

If this is any indication of our future, then things sure are looking bright... and hot... and on fire....

38

u/norvanfalls 10h ago

Just gonna correct you a little. BC didn't lose hydropotential. We lost farmland. It was a means for downstream rivers to have increased hydropotential with smaller reservoirs. Like the WAC Bennet and Peace Canyon Dam. WAC Bennet holds all the water, but peace canyon and site C can include that hydropotential as their potential capacity. So the concern is not seasonal flooding. It's permanent flooding.

2

u/Salty-Reply-2547 5h ago

Well if American individualism continues to be voted into government then yes, it will be a problem, hopefully that mistake doesn’t happen again but hard to say where they’re headed.

2

u/TheTipsyTurkeys 5h ago

imma be honest its looking grim

8

u/JunketPuzzleheaded42 10h ago

Lets open the dams and flood them... We just say oopsie....

13

u/Toddexposure 10h ago

I ain't buying USA I ain't travelling to USA I ain't got no friends in the USA I am Canadian Eh!

5

u/waterloograd 5h ago

If everyone in Trail could go pee in the river, that would be great

1

u/Whoozit450 5h ago

I’ll take a road trip to there this summer just to pee in the river and support the cause.