River towns, including Celilo, were relocated to allow for the rising reservoir. Those who remained at Celilo got new homes, many built with "weathered" surplus World War II materials, in the new Celilo Village, said George Miller, Celilo village project manager for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. And it became a dreadful slum. Water pressure, residents said, was so low that sewage sometimes backed into the water pipes. Antone Minthorn, 71, chairman of the Umatilla tribal confederation based near Pendleton, said non-Indian towns that were relocated got good-quality modern facilities. Not so Celilo, "because we were Indians. We were out of power." Congress did not authorize money for repairs until 2004. It is now being renovated by the Corps with new sewer and water systems and new streets and housing. About 60 people call the dilapidated village home, a number that can double when tribal members arrive for fishing season. In its prime the population probably ran to 5,000-10,000. The fishery is controlled, and today the tribes' catch is limited. Some isolated platform fishing continues but the tribal fishery generally has become a much smaller and placid, mostly still-water operation. "There is an economy here only when there are fish," Jay Minthorn said. "Young people go to work in Portland. The challenge is to keep the village together, to build an economy for them." Celilo Falls, he said, was a living, a livelihood. "We had an abundance of fish." he said. "They were 20, 40, 50 pounders," and salmon sales to visitors were brisk. The fishery was a tourist draw. "People come from all over to witness the fishery," he said. "They'd give you a dollar to take your picture. A dollar was a lot of money in them days." Today, windsurfers frolic where the falls once channeled a roaring river. A sign at a freeway wayside tells visitors what they missed. But the tribes remember. Ronald Jim remembers his father, Howard Jim, a long time chief who fished the falls; when the gates closed and the falls vanished, the elder Jim couldn't bear the sight, went away and didn't come back for two years. Jay Minthorn remembers a Umatilla member, Wesley Tyus, who said he would never fish or eat salmon again. "He lived by that," Minthorn said. "When you see what we have her today, people say it's the biggest cemetery that we have here," Minthorn said. The Dalles Dam can generate enough electricity to serve a city the size of Seattle, and there is no talk of removing it. A few have suggested dropping the reservoir 40 feet or so to expose the falls again briefly. "But there is an opinion that, "Don't bring them back only to take them away again. That pain should not be felt by others," Hudson said. Incoming and Outgoing messages protected by Trend Micro PC-cillin program