The Columbia River Treaty recently lost a great titan for justice when Mario Scodallero of Cranbrook left this world on Jan. 26 at the age of 95.
He was a young man when the treaty was ratified by Canada in 1964, and a direct witness to the intense three-year national debate of what many then were calling the Great Canadian Giveaway. A hockey and baseball star and dedicated team player raised in Trail, he believed then what he died believing: that Canada had gotten a raw deal.
In the final decade of his life, as a treaty re-negotiation process began, Mario set about speaking up for the river. Borrowing words from our mutual friend Ken Bettin, he was a David to the treaty’s Goliath. The higher up he went – in tireless meetings with politicians, treaty negotiators and even in a letter to Justin Trudeau – the braver he got. No one was too important or too powerful for him to challenge or set straight.
And yet, Mario was also willing to listen. He considered other views, adapted his own position when necessary. At an advanced age, he studied and deliberately mastered much of the complex math involved in the treaty. A proud Canadian, Mario wanted Canada to value itself more. He used his voice politely, but also persistently. He believed in getting things right and lived his values in a tireless one-man campaign, inspiring others to do the same.
Some recent U.S. political thrusts about North American tariffs include broad comments that the U.S. does not need Canada, that it has what it needs to thrive within its own boundaries. This position demonstrates an utter lack of understanding of the Columbia River Treaty. Central to it is water storage upstream in Canada for the U.S. downstream. Canada holds and manages the upper watershed’s 50 per cent share of the fourth-largest watershed in North America.
What would happen if Canada opened that valve as it wished, allowing the river to flow more naturally again?
The re-negotiation process laid bare U.S. reliance on Canadian flood control. Since 1964, the Pacific Northwest has developed a sprawling urban and industrial area on the floodplain adjacent to Portland, Oregon. U.S. dams do not have enough reservoir capacity to protect all those people and economic activities in a big water year. This geographic fact originally motivated the 1964 treaty. The law of gravity remains in force.
Over the past 60 years, the U.S. has also developed an intricate hydro-power system based on Canada’s storage. The treaty allows divergent U.S. interests to balance the needs of irrigation in dry central Washington with the needs of ever hungrier power producers. In other words, to have it all. A recent, rapid increase in construction of AI data centres on the mid-Columbia in central Washington is the latest example of U.S. advantage brought by the treaty’s predictable flows.
After a 2024 tour across the American portion of the sprawling Columbia River basin, I noticed how many Americans are completely unaware of the Columbia River Treaty. But that doesn’t mean Canada’s contributions are insignificant.
If Mario was still here, he’d be reminding us all that Canada’s contributions to the U.S. economy are vastly underrated. My first memory of him was when, at 87, he tracked me down through Nelson’s museum. It was just after the release of A River Captured, a book that details the injustices, most felt by the upper Columbia River First Nation, the Sinixt.
“Every Canadian should read this book,” he asserted over the phone, in a powerful voice gravelled by time.
The 2024 Agreement in Principle to update Columbia River Treaty has been the result of slow, deliberate bi-national negotiations. Canada managed to chip away at the dominance of U.S. interests without serving 10-year notice of termination, the right of both countries to do at any time. But Mario’s belief in termination has not wavered.
My last conversation with him was about a month ago. His voice had weakened to a near whisper. He was fading, but he continued to maintain that Canada needed to act with strength, to remember, and also remind the U.S. of the value of upper Columbia River watershed storage. “Canada must serve notice of termination,” he said softly, before the call ended.
And that was before the threat of tariffs rose like dark thunderclouds on the horizon dividing the two countries.
Eileen Delehanty Pearkes is the author of A River Captured and most recently, co-author of Big River: Resilience and Renewal in the Columbia River Basin.