 The Washington Department of Ecology named the Tucannon basin a Watershed Resource Inventory Area (WRIA) and in 1995 began hearings about how to allocate the water.The lower Snake River was home to bands of the Palouse and other Sahaptin-speaking people, including Nez Perce, Yakama, Walla Walla, Umatilla, and Wanapum.The Blue Mountains formed the western part of a region traditional to the aboriginal Nimi'ipuu people, renamed Nez Perce by Lewis and Clark when they arrived in the region in 1805.