Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump announced an idea last week to help alleviate water shortages in California, and it involves British Columbia.
“We have millions of gallons of water coming down from the north with the snowpack in Canada and it’s all raining down,” Trump said at a news conference at his golf course in Los Angeles.
Werner Antweiler of the University of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business said Trump’s idea is actually not new.
“It seems to be in people’s heads that Canada has all this wonderful water,” he said.
“Can’t we just take it to where we need it, where there are drought conditions, like in California? But of course the business logic is that it’s too expensive to do that and there’s just no realistic business model for that.”
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Antweiler said there is a treaty between British Columbia and the U.S., called the Columbia River Treaty.
“That really regulates how much water flows across the border and what it’s going to be used for,” he added.
“We’ve actually had less water because of worsening climate change, so there are some adjustments to be made. But water is also used for hydroelectric dams. It’s used to support fisheries in the Columbia River all the way to the coast, mostly throughout Oregon. So, frankly, there’s not enough water here to send anywhere.”
Trump told reporters that “all that water is just going aimlessly into the Pacific.”
“And if they returned it, all that water would reach here and Los Angeles,” he added.
Antweiler said British Columbia and Canada need their own water and there is no more to divert en masse to other countries.
“It’s unrealistic for ecological and commercial reasons. Also, it would require a treaty, and we wouldn’t negotiate a treaty that would harm Canada. We would only want to negotiate a tree that would benefit us,” Antweiler said.
“In fact, that is exactly what the Columbia Treaty does.”
Trump said that if BC turned on the tap, “farmers would have all the water they need.”
Antweiler said it’s best to take comments like this with a grain of salt.
“I’m sure Mr. Trump has never studied hydrology or the economics of water management or the real needs of California, because what California needs above all is local water,” he said.
“In fact, they need to manage their own water much better. They have water, but they are managing it poorly for various reasons.”
Antweiler added that there is much California can and should do to manage its water sources, including water use in agriculture.
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