Trump's musings on 'very large faucet' in Canada part of looming water crisis, say researchers

Water sharing between Canada and the United States has long been a contentious issue. 

In 2005, former Alberta premier Peter Lougheed warned against sharing Canada's water supply with the United States, suggesting Alberta's most important resource was water, not oil and gas.

"We should communicate to the United States very quickly how firm we are about it," Lougheed said.

Lougheed's concern didn't emerge in a vacuum. It came in the context of a long history of water-sharing proposals, some more radical than others. 

Take the North American Water and Power Alliance (NAWAPA), a massive, abandoned engineering megaproject that aimed to "replumb" the continent, diverting water from rivers in Alaska through Canada to the United States in northern Montana through the Rocky Mountain Trench.

Those proposals come and go, even if some researchers see NAWAPA as something of a "zombie" project, always resurfacing, never dead. The actual history of water-sharing between the U.S. and Canada has been much less dramatic — orderly and bureaucratic, managed through institutions, boards and treaties.

So when Donald Trump, as the Republican presidential nominee, made comments in September 2024 about there being a "very large faucet" that could be turned on to drain water from Canada to help with American water shortages, the ears of Canadian hydrologists perked up.

"There's a bit of an inflammatory nature to it," said Prof. Tricia Stadnyk, a Canada Research Chair in hydrologic modelling with the University of Calgary's Schulich School of Engineering.

"However, I think there's a demonstrated history of him being … maybe the right word is 'interested' over Canada's water."

For water experts, there's worry that climate change and shifting U.S. policies could put pressure on long-standing cross-border water agreements.

And century-old infrastructure isn't helping matters.

Take, for instance, failed siphons in Montana, where water is diverted from the St. Mary River through northern Montana and across southern Alberta, supplying essential water for some Canadian agricultural operators and an Alberta community near the border. Repairs on those siphons are now facing a U.S. federal funding pause under an executive order.

John Pomeroy, a University of Saskatchewan water scientist, said he's very concerned about where this issue is heading for three reasons.

First, water management regimes in North America are not fulfilling the requirements they need for sustainable water supply and management for ecosystems and people, he said.