In the mid-1960s , devastating flooding brought renewed interest in damming the North Coast rivers . The Department of Water Resources formed the State-Federal Interagency Task Force with the Bureau of Reclamation and the Army Corps of Engineers to develop plans for developing the rivers in the name of flood control – which would , incidentally , provide a way to divert some of their water into the SWP system . Although most of the proposed projects met their demise over political squabbles , one that persisted was the Dos Rios Project on the Eel River system , which would have involved constructing a gigantic dam on the Middle Fork of the Eel River , diverting water through the Grindstone Tunnel into the Sacramento Valley . Supporters of this project cited the disastrous Christmas flood of 1964 and the flood control benefits Dos Rios would provide to the Eel River basin
Christmas flood of 1964
Christmas flood of 1964
California State Water Project