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<br />with its insatiable appetite for electrical power. was invited to move into the Northwest in <br />the 1940s and 1950s after the dams were built. In this case, demand for power followed <br />supply. <br />The Snake River is many things to many people. Idaho farmers like to think of the <br />Snake as a "working river." Halfway between the Snake River's headwaters and the Colum. <br />bia. diversions at Milner Dam near Burley. Idaho deplete all but a trickle (200 ft'/s) of the <br />river's flow. This water irrigates more than three million acres of farm land. an area roughly <br /> <br /> <br />The Snake River ;n Hells Canyon <br /> <br />the size of Connecticut (Palmer, 1991). That's a lot ofpotatoes.1im Palmer recalls his first <br />impression when he visited Shoshone Falls. now usually dry. an impression that stands in <br />sharp contrast to the farmers who depend on Snake River water for irrigation: "I won. <br />dered where the water had gone. and stood puzzled. feeling that nature had been warped <br />in a sinister way. as if I had seen a three-legged deer or a toothless squirrel." <br />After passing west through Idaho. the Snake swings north to outline the Idaho/ <br />Oregon border. Below Milner Dam, the Snake is recharged by the Thousands Springs <br />(whose source is in part the return flow trom all those potato fields) and then by the Boise. <br />Owyhee. and Payette Rivers. The Snake once again is full. blooded as it rolls into Hells <br />Canyon with a yearly discharge of 16 million acre.feet. The river drops into canyons that <br />make farming and even ranching progressively more difficult. Hells Canyon is arguably the <br />deepest canyon in the United States. Peaks loom 7,900 feet above its waters. <br />Deep canyons and a big river were the siren's song that few dam builders could resist. <br /> <br />20 <br />