ABSTRACT
During the New Deal, the Columbia and Snake River systems were conceived as a single river basin unit, linked in identity and destiny with a Pacific Northwest region consisting of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and western Montana. Together, the Columbia River basin and the three-and-a-half-state Pacific Northwest region were seen to constitute a particularly inclusive and democratic, socially and environmentally beneficial, regional scale for environmental planning and decision making. This regional-scale geographic framing has shaped Columbia and Snake River management thinking and decision making ever since.
