The Prairies' experience in developing trans-boundary water agreements could point long, drawn-out Mackenzie River Basin negotiations in the right direction, says a report released on February 22, 2012, by the C.D. Howe Institute.
In the report, Resolving Water-Use Conflicts: Insights from the Prairie Experience for the Mackenzie River Basin, University of Alberta law professor David Percy suggests that the cooperative approach to creating a very basic agreement on water sharing done by Prairie governments in the late '60s could kick-start movement in increasingly complex negotiations facing the Mackenzie Basin, which have dragged on for 40 years.
"It's been 40 years since governments starting talking about a water-sharing agreement for the Mackenzie Basin," said Professor Percy of the University of Alberta. "A generation later, a growing population and rapid development associated with the oil sands and other industries, especially in the Peace-Athabasca system, have added urgency to the task."
Professor Percy notes that in 1969, after a prolonged period of disagreement between Alberta and Saskatchewan over conflicting priorities for the use of prairie rivers, the two provinces joined with the governments of Manitoba and Canada in an arrangement known as the Apportionment Agreement. The Agreement, based on the idea that each upstream province would allow one-half of the natural flow of the rivers to pass to its downstream neighbours, later was extended to groundwater and water pollution.
Professor Percy reasons that a similarly modest approach could work for the Mackenzie Basin, where the governments of Canada, Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia, as well as the Yukon and Northwest Territories, are now attempting to negotiate an agreement for the management of the entire aquatic eco-system, which extends over an area of more than 1.8 million square kilometres.
"Over the years, water sharing negotiations have grown to cover the whole eco-system of the Mackenzie Basin," Percy notes. "A more bite-sized approach, beginning with a simple water sharing rule, might provide a more workable starting point."
The history in the southern prairies, says Percy, suggests that more progress might be had if governments first sought agreement on the basics of minimum flow regimes and water quality objectives. This would set the foundations of the trust that would enable the provinces and Canada to reach toward a more comprehensive agreement, with better prospects for success.
For the report go to: http://www.cdhowe.org/pdf/Commentary_341.pdf