With a journalism grant from the Bill Lane Center, Lynda Mapes investigates the Columbia River at a crossroads
With a grant awarded to her by the Bill Lane Center to investigate issues of prime importance to the American West, journalist Lynda Mapes has published two new stories in the Seattle Times exploring the past, present and future of the Columbia River. Her first piece offers a broad overview of the river's history, and why, today, it finds itself at a crossroads. The second piece examines the existential threat faced by the river basin, which has been pushed to the brink as a primary source of fish, energy and commerce for both the U.S. and Canada.
Mapes' reporting outlines some of the biggest questions stakeholders are up against in considering the management of benefits derived from the river. For decades, the Columbia's resources have been governed by an agreement established between the U.S. and Canada in 1964. Now, in 2025, with talks underway about the Columbia River Treaty's future, Mapes looks at the current policy context and questions whether transboundary cooperation can adapt to modern environmental, cultural, and political realities.
As Mapes mentions early in her piece, the Bill Lane Center recently co-sponsored a Stanford symposium focusing on the history, health and future of the Columbia River, a vital life force for Canadians and Americans alike. Experts convened at the conference to discuss bi-national management of the Columbia's shared natural resources, as well as the priorities of Native Americans and First Nations. The take-home message from the panelists was clear: in a warming climate, competing needs for power, water, flood control, fish and agriculture are only going to intensify. And the Trump administration's tariffs and threats of annexation have antagonized Canada, the key partner in negotiating mutually beneficial terms for a new Columbia River Treaty. How will the two countries reckon with the river's possible futures?
In an ambitious proposal for the media fellowship, Mapes set out to trace the river’s history and understand its trajectory in a particularly high-stakes moment. Focusing on the intertwined challenges of climate change, energy production, tribal justice, and ecological restoration, her new report takes readers on a journey from the river's dammed headwaters in British Columbia to its mouth in Oregon, telling the stories of dam operators, Native American tribes, farmers, fishermen, wildlife professionals, and all those whose lives are intertwined with the river system's future.
Nearly 100 years after the start of this audacious remaking of the great river of the West, a reckoning is coming due. The Columbia today is stuffed with invasive species, its waters are warmed hotter than 70 degrees in summer, and while sport fishers make trophy catches, Native fishers pull empty nets. Meanwhile, climate warming, weather extremes and changing power markets have planners scrambling to satisfy competing needs.
Mapes places this ecological turning point within a broader policy context. Decisions currently underway — including the renegotiation of the Columbia River Treaty between the U.S. and Canada, and regional shifts in energy development — will set the course of the basin’s future for generations. Her reporting interrogates the assumptions behind the current system and asks where and how the region might move beyond the status quo. From alternative energy investments and river-based freight transport to dam removal and advanced fish passage technologies, Mapes asks what it would take to realign the Columbia River with both environmental sustainability and justice.
With decades of experience covering environmental issues and Indigenous perspectives in the Pacific Northwest, Mapes brings depth and nuance to a story of regional and international importance. Her fellowship with the Bill Lane Center enabled months of reporting and travel along the river, including interviews with tribal leaders, scientists, policymakers, and local communities who live with the legacy —and future — of the Columbia.
The Bill Lane Center's Western Media Fellowship supports best-in-class, in-depth journalism about the American West. Mapes’ work exemplifies the kind of incisive, regional reporting the fellowship was designed to inspire.
Read past fellows' work, and learn more about the Bill Lane Center’s Western Media Fellowship.
