| Summary: | This article discusses the Nez Perce tribe, agricultural development and the inequality of scale. During the era of large-dam construction in the American West, the Pacific Northwest River Basins Commission designated the lower Snake River watershed as Region Six, an area the tribe have called home. Throughout the Columbia and Snake River watersheds, a complex system of earthen and concrete dams dramatically impedes anadromous fish from completing their 40- to 50-million-year-old quest to reproduce and survive. In particular, the lower Snake River dams were constructed to provide Region Six with sources of subsidized electricity and economic security and to facilitate the shipment of agricultural commodities by barge to the centralized ports in Columbia River in Portland, Oregon.
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