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In early spring of 1948, unseasonably warm temperatures loosened and melted Idaho snowpack, swelling the Snake and Columbia Rivers. Between May and June, the Columbia overflowed its banks from Umatilla to Oregon; in Vanport, Oregon's second largest city at the time, river dikes crumbled, killing fifty. The total death toll in the Columbia basin numbered over sixty, with nearly half a billion dollars in property damage. This flood, combined with an increasingly urgent need for electricity in the region, was the impetus to move forward with previously stalled plans to build the Hells Canyon Dam on the Snake River on the border of Idaho and Oregon.

Formed in August of 1948, and directed by Daniel B. Noble, the Pacific Northwest Development Association - along with the National Reclamation Association and the National Water Conservation Conference - was opposed to the creation of regional authorities, and lobbied against the Hells Canyon High dam project. The PNDA focused its efforts instead on establishing local authority, preserving state water laws, and promoting state participation in water resources developments.

[Source: Public Power, Private Dams: The Hells Canyon High Dam Controversy, by Karl Boyd Brooks]