According to Dartt-Newton and Erlandson writing in American Indian Quarterly, the name Chumash means "bead maker" or "seashell people" being that they originated near the Santa Barbara coast (Newton 416).

In 1941 the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers warned that the dam would not be economically effective, as the steep, erosive topography upstream would cause it to silt up quickly.

Prior to the dam's construction, an estimated 5,000 steelhead spawned in the Ventura River each year; afterwards this dropped to a few hundred.

[7] Many experts including the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the California Department of Fish and Game aligned themselves against the project, and before construction an architect advised that the proposed materials would react together badly.

An engineering survey twenty years later proved him right, finding "internal swelling, external cracking, disintegration of the wall and movement of the abutments".

The stabilizing layers would be gradually removed over a period of several years, allowing natural high flows to flush the accumulated sediments downstream.

The graffiti was seen as a commentary on the slow pace of the removal process, and was embraced by Ventura County,[7] appearing in the logo of the Matilija Dam Ecosystem Restoration Project.

In 2016 the Ventura County watershed Protection District and AECOM released a report which proposed several alternative options for removing the dam.