The line went over well, for the most part, a populist poke at bureaucratic excess. Yet by making salmon his symbol, Mr. Obama touched tender nerves here in a region where the embattled fish, many of which are endangered species, are inextricably linked to the majestic and controversially managed rivers they struggle to navigate. After all, the fish and the rivers have long been at the forefront of another challenge the president addressed in his speech: how to create energy and jobs while protecting the environment and reducing carbon emissions.

“It came out as a joke, but he doesn’t know what we’re going through,” said Darcy Linklater, the mayor of this faded railroad town just a few miles from the Snake. “It’s just such a mess.”

It seems everyone wants a piece of the river system that the salmon travel, and agreeing on ways to share it is harder than coming up with one-liners.

On Feb. 1, huge trucks began hauling oil-production equipment to Montana from Lewiston, Idaho’s only seaport, located 465 miles east of the ocean and made possible by a series of navigation locks connected to massive concrete dams that control the Columbia and Snake. Soon the trucks are expected to ship much more equipment farther north, to the oil sands of Canada, against opposition from groups who say the route, once traveled by Lewis and Clark, should not be used to advance the future of fossil fuels.

Even as advocates for salmon want some dams removed to ease fish migration, major renovations are under way this winter at three dams to ensure that the barge traffic they enable can continue for decades to come.