Province flags drought risk

Skirmishes over trade have put negotiations for the renewal of the Columbia River Treaty on ice, but a low provincial snowpack is underscoring the ongoing need for sound water management across the province.

The BC River Forecast Centre reports that the province’s snowpack was 27% below normal on March 1, heralding low freshet risk and the potential for drought later in the season.

While the snowpack is above levels seen last year, when it averaged 34% below normal, the report issued March 11 warns that lingering impacts from multiple years of drought point “towards elevated drought hazards for this upcoming spring and summer.”

The Chilcotin is the worst off, with a snowpack just 16% of normal, making it especially vulnerable to drought this year, as well as the Similkameen. Northwestern BC basins enjoy near-normal snowpacks for this time of year, good news for forage producers in these areas who have been hard-pressed to rebuild stocks since 2022.

The Lower Fraser, which includes the Fraser Valley, is at 69%, while the Fraser River at Hope is at 74%.

The province has made on-farm water management a priority, hosting workshops and making significant funding available for on-farm water infrastructure projects. Water management is a priority topic of the recently announced premier’s task force on agriculture and food.

The Columbia River Treaty, signed in 1965, is credited with significant impacts on agricultural activities on both sides of the Canada-US border.

Designed to provide upstream power generating capacity as well as downstream flood control, the treaty enabled significant expansion of orchards and vegetable farms in the mid-Columbia Valley in Washington to the alleged detriment of BC growers.

Negotiations with an eye to modernizing the treaty prior to renewal saw an agreement in principle reached last July, but this week the US hit pause on the renewal process pending a broad review of its international engagements.