The Canada-U.S. Environmental Relationship at the Turn of the Century

Abstract

The Canada-U.S. environmental relationship appears to the casual observer as a series of crises separated by times of complacency. Often the crises received so much attention--Great Lakes water quality in the 1970s, acid rain in the 1980s, the Pacific salmon dispute of the 1990s--that, indeed, other issues paled by comparison and appeared at the time to be nonissues. However, the reality is that there is virtually never a time of calm and complacency in the environmental arena. At any one time politicians and bureaucrats on both sides of the border are dealing with myriad issues involving air quality, water quality, transfer of water, species and habitats, impacts of development projects, and changes in the structure of mechanisms for dispute resolution (such as the International Joint (Commission). This hidden reality is a tribute to the smooth but complex relationships developed by the U.S. and Canada, which have evolved over the twentieth century to prevent, minimize, and resolve environmental disputes before they become newsworthy. This article will review the environmental relationship at the end of the 1990s. Rather than provide an in-depth analysis about any single issue, it follows similar broad overviews of the mid-1990s (Schwartz 1994), and the late eighties and early 1990s (Valiante and Muldoon 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993). The issues chosen for discussion are not the only issues on the bilateral environmental agenda, but the ones where significant progress has been made, important structural changes are underway, or where substantial irritants are still festering. These include the reform of the International Joint Commission (IJC), the Pacific Salmon dispute, acid rain and other air quality issues, removal of water from the Great Lakes, and transfer of water across drainage basins. The article concludes with general observations about transboundary environmental disputes and their resolution in the context of the overall Canada-U.S. relationship. Reform of the International Joint Commission Perhaps the oldest still-functional environmental management system in the world for shared water resources is the Canada-U.S. International Joint Commission. This body, created by the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909, has a proud record of ninety-one years of fact finding and dispute resolution. Although the commission can, in theory, be used by either the U.S. or Canada to work on environmental issues anywhere along the more than 5000 miles of border between the two countries, the majority of its work has focused on the Great Lakes. Western states and provinces and the northeastern U.S. and Maritime provinces of Canada have occasionally been sites for IJC studies and reports, but this has been infrequent. In fairness, neither government has made much use of the commission's potential in the management of shared water resources outside the Great Lakes Basin. Since 1972 the commission has had a standing reference to be the permanent watchdog for Great Lakes water quality. It is to report regularly to both nations on its assessment of progress, or lack thereof, in meeting the objectives of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreements. This permanent watchdog status does not apply to any other water quality issues along the remaining two-thirds of the international boundary. Here the commission can act only when specifically requested to do so by both governments. This may change in the near future. In November of 1997 the commission, responding to a charge from both countries to rethink its mission for the next century, proposed some sweeping changes. The very first proposal made in its report, The IJC and the 21st Century, requests authorization from both governments to establish ecosystem-based international watershed boards from coast to coast to prevent and resolve transboundary environmental disputes. If established, these boards would extend the model the IJC has provided in management of the Great Lakes and provide what is perhaps the most extensive management system for shared water resources in the world. …