Montana may be a bit player in the grand scheme of the Columbia Basin Treaty, but the state will be affected by any changes to the treaty that could be negotiated over the next 10 years.

The treaty was implemented by the United States and Canada in 1964, with provisions that it could be amended by 2024 — and any proposed changes had to be on the table by 2014.

On the U.S. side of the border, there are plans to submit alternative proposals by the end of this year to the State Department, which will negotiate any new treaty terms with Canada.

When it comes to the operation of Libby Dam — one of four dams that were the direct result of the treaty — the state of Montana has a strong interest in maintaining a status quo that the state fought for years to obtain, said Brian Marotz, a fisheries biologist with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks.

“Montana spent a couple decades plus some lawsuits to achieve that,” said Marotz, who represents the state on the Sovereign Technical Committee, a panel that provides technical information for potential treaty proposals. “The Montana Operation, as it’s become known, tends to keep more water in Montana and it balances power generation, flood control and fish and wildlife that are worth quite a lot to Montana as well.”

For years, Lake Koocanusa and Hungry Horse Reservoir were tapped in ways that the state regarded as harmful to fish and wildlife and detrimental to recreation. 

There were, for example, highly unnatural “double peak” flows to provide more water in the lower Columbia in late summer to benefit salmon. The current Montana Operation still provides additional water for salmon, but it’s released in a gradually declining fashion.

Bruce Measure, who was one of then-Gov. Brian Schweitzer’s representatives on the Northwest Power and Conservation Council for eight years, said the Montana Operation is finally getting basinwide acceptance.

“This is the first time we’ve been stable in 20 years,” he said, reiterating the need to maintain that stability in the future.

But Marotz said the Montana Operation could be at risk.

“The flood control provisions in the current treaty will end in 2024 regardless of whether the treaty is extended, terminated or modified,” he said. “And the Canadians’ perspective is that (the U.S.) should solve for our flood control using our domestic dams first rather than calling for additional storage in Canada.”

The dams created by the treaty include the Duncan, Keenleyside and Mica dams in Canada. Combined with Libby Dam, they provide an additional 15.5 million acre feet of storage. That storage has been used to avert flooding in the basin, with a good example being 1996, when the  dams prevented flooding in Portland, Ore. 

But flood control storage has come at a cost for power rate payers in the Pacific Northwest. The treaty provided power-generation sharing provisions that created what’s known as the “Canadian Entitlement.”

Because there initially wasn’t a demand in Canada for shared power generation, Canada sold the first 30 years of its entitlement to a U.S. consortium for $254 million in 1964, and used the proceeds to finance construction of the three Canadian dams. But ever since the 30-year contracts expired, the Bonneville Power Administration has been delivering Canadian Entitlement energy worth about $250 million to $350 million every year.

Measure and Marotz say there is interest, particularly among U.S. utilities, in re-examining the Canadian Entitlement.

“We don’t see the [flood control] benefits that we receive as anywhere near the value of the entitlements that we pay,” said Measure, a newly elected trustee for the Flathead Electric Cooperative, the largest cooperative in the Pacific Northwest.

High-water years that present serious flood risks are relatively rare, he said, and it’s been suggested that Canadian reservoir storage should be purchased only during those years.

He said the cost of the Canadian Entitlement, along with the cost of fish and wildlife programs, is folded into the rates that BPA charges the co-op.

Reduced entitlement obligations, he said, could conceivably lower rates, curb future rate increases, or “it could be a wash” if the savings were diverted to fish and wildlife spending that currently accounts for about one third of every rate-payer’s bill.

“Only 2.5 percent of those expenditures are in Montana,” said Measure, noting that the vast majority of spending is directed at restoring salmon runs in the lower Columbia Basin. “Montana is a real marginal player when it comes to those things.”

Providing for fish and wildlife on both sides of the border is an element that was not part of treaty negotiations prior to 1964, but it will be in upcoming negotiations.

Measure said Montana does have the benefit of being represented on a panel called the Sovereign Review Team, along with Idaho, Washington and Oregon, 15 tribal governments and 11 federal agencies. 

He said there is hope that the interests of the co-op and other public utility districts will be accounted for when that panel makes recommendations for treaty alternatives to present to the State Department at the end of this year.

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by email at jmann@dailyinterlake.com.