The modernized Columbia River Treaty is a tool to prepare for the needs of current and future generations in the Columbia River Basin. The Columbia River Basin is a transboundary basin managed between the United States and Canada, with Indigenous communities and sovereign nations typically excluded by those federal governments. The treaty governing the basin, the Columbia River Treaty, is currently under renegotiation. To elevate youth voices for the future of the Columbia River Basin, the North American Youth Parliament for Water gathered young people from the Basin through the Youth Forums for the Columbia River.

This report, “Youth Vision for the Columbia River,” collects youth concerns, insights, and demands as future caretakers and residents of the Basin.

As the living generation with the longest future to be lived in the Columbia River Basin, youth present these united demands for our future to be protected through the modernized Columbia River Treaty and additional management measures for the Basin beyond the Treaty itself. Above all, we have a strong desire to recognize the responsibility we have to stand in solidarity, as allies, with Indigenous voices.

In particular, the youth constituency to the Treaty demands the immediate breaching of the four lower Snake River dams as well as the breaching of John Day dam no later than 2030. This process must be just and community-inclusive to ensure the replacement of critical services previously provided by the dams.

Youth view the current modernization efforts of the Columbia River Treaty as a tool to begin a broader discussion about improving the management of the Basin as a whole to better prepare for our future in the basin, and that of future generations. The CRT is one management forum among many to support our youth vision for our future in the Basin. By 2025, youth of the Basin propose the initiation of a Columbia International River Basin Organization as an evolution in policy making that emphasizes transparency in decision making processes and supports the needs of the communities the policies serve. As current leaders plan for a clean energy-based, climate-mitigating future for the Columbia Basin, the removal of certain dams is necessary both to decarbonize and protect ecosystems from the effects of climate change.