U.S. water official, seen as Las Vegas ally, plans to resign

Thursday, Dec. 2, 2004 | 10:58 a.m.

Bennett Raley, who as the Bush administration's point man on Western water issues worked closely with Southern Nevada officials during a period of crushing drought and growing demand for the resource, is resigning effective Friday.

Raley, Interior Department assistant secretary, was a frequent visitor to Las Vegas, which became the common site for discussions bringing together the seven Colorado River basin states and the federal government.

Raley, a former chief counsel to Western members of the U.S. Senate and a Colorado native, said Wednesday that he is resigning to spend more time with his family. He said he could not discuss specific future work plans until the resignation is official, but he plans to practice law again.

It is not unusual for presidential administrations to see departures of high-ranking political appointees after an election, and the Bush administration has seen several of its highest ranking officials announce their resignations. Raley, however, had a particularly close relationship with Southern Nevada and its neighbors over the last four years.

Raley served as the Bush administration overseer on complex and often sharply contested issues affecting the Colorado River, the source of 90 percent of the region's drinking water.

During his tenure, complex negotiations among California's water agencies, who take the lion's share of water from the river, concluded, opening the door for resolution after more than 70 years of uncertainty of water-sharing arrangements among the basin states.

However, as governments resolved some river issues, the drought disrupted the ongoing discussions on the future of the Colorado River. An unprecedented drought, now entering its sixth year, is a growing threat to those communities such as Las Vegas that are dependent on the river.

The drought has caused water reserves in Lake Mead and Lake Powell to drop below 50 percent and has sparked discussions on how to divide the water resource if "shortage criteria" moves the federal government to reduce basic appropriations to the seven basin states, including Nevada.

During Raley's tenure, the Bush administration launched Water 2025, an effort to confront what it called "a serious crisis" in a long-term lack of water in the West. The initiative brought policymakers and scientists together while providing some funds for research and technological approaches to the water crisis.

"Bennett ... played the leading role in our Water 2025 initiative, which received bipartisan support to provide assistance to Western communities facing chronic water shortages," Interior Secretary Gale Norton said Wednesday. "Bennett has had a challenging and productive tenure and I can appreciate his desire to return to the practice of law and spend more time with his family."

Raley said Wednesday that he is "very proud of the work" the administration and the Interior Department have led.

"In the last four years we have made substantial progress on the Colorado River issues," Raley said, citing the interstate agreements on sharing and the work on habitat preservation for rare and endangered species on the river. "We worked very hard as an administration. We invested a lot. We're very proud to get that many things done." Raley said that while he does not know who his successor will be, he expects the administration will continue to focus on water issues affecting the West.

President Bush, he said, is from Crawford, Texas, and understands the importance of water to the West.

Bush "was personally involved in a number of water issues, including the Colorado River water issues. I see no reason why that focus will not continue."

Pat Mulroy, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, the water wholesaler charged with bringing Colorado River water to the Las Vegas urban area, said Raley's understanding of complex legal, environmental and physical issues affecting the river helped the region.

"Bennett is going to be sorely missed," Mulroy said. "Bennett had a passion and a deep understanding of Colorado River players, the difficulties of that river system and he did a great job in the four years he was assistant secretary. He was very easy for Southern Nevada to work with."

Raley served best as a prod to get the basin states of Nevada, California, Arizona, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah to cooperate, Mulroy said. Looking to the future, the biggest question is how those states, and the federal government will respond to the drought.

"It's about how the river gets managed as a system," she said. "It is how we are going to operate and manage this river system through the drought. To that extent, Bennett was very helpful.

"Bennett was never disrespectful of the role of the states. He saw his role was to put pressure on the states to reach resolution when pressure was needed."

An understanding such as Raley's of the nuances of policy "and the culture and history of the river ... will be very much needed in the years to come, especially if this drought deepens," Mulroy said.

Raley has been a regular visitor to the annual Colorado River Water Users Association conference, which has been in recent years held in Las Vegas in December. Once a meeting with a heavy focus on drowsy technical discussions, it has become an important forum for discussion and public announcements on water policies affecting Nevada and the other basin states.

Mulroy said she and the other water agencies of the West will be looking carefully to see who replaces Raley for the Interior Department at the annual conference. Whoever comes, "they obviously will be besieged with questions on who will take Bennett's place, because he was their water mastermind, their water policy guru."