"When my parents were my age, their parents were dead and they were having fun white-water rafting down the Snake River and here I sit -- two houses down, " said Jones.

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They say that the federal Fish Passage Center, created by the Northwest Power Planning Council to monitor fish counts and water flows on the Columbia and Snake, has documented a direct correlation between higher flows and salmon survival.

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Mr Simplot himself, an avowed lover of skiing, duck shooting and the great outdoors, was attacked in the 1970s for his support for new coal-fired electricity plants along the Snake river and for a scheme to generate hydro-power by diverting water from another river into a vast underground tube.

ECONOMIST: Jack Simplot