Feds to fire employee who shared information with environmentalists

Friday, Dec. 22, 2006 | 7:08 a.m.

The federal Bureau of Reclamation is preparing to fire an employee who provided environmentalists with information on a planned, Nevada-funded project to build a huge reservoir to capture Colorado River water near the Mexican border.

Charles Rex Wahl, an environmental protection specialist for the Bureau of Reclamation's Albuquerque office, worked for more than two years in the agency's Yuma, Ariz., office. During that time, he provided information on the bureau's activities to an analyst with Environmental Defense, a national environmental group.

Bureau managers say the "administratively controlled" information was confidential, for internal purposes .

The bureau said it discovered at least 10 e-mails that revealed confidential information after Wahl was transferred to Albuquerque, and his supervisor looked through Wahl's e-mail to see whether any documents needed to be acted upon or completed.

Most of the e-mails are casual in character, although they discuss some of the bureau's biggest projects along the Colorado River.

A government description of his job, which paid more than $60,000 annually, was to manage "all elements of assigned National Environmental Policy Act compliance activities associated with actions and initiatives of the Yuma Area Office."

In practice that meant interacting with the public, environmental groups and other agencies, providing information and providing input on policy issues to his managers at the bureau.

Representatives for Wahl say the information was public - or should have been - and he was responding to requests for information from other agencies or nonprofit groups.

The Bureau of Reclamation manages river flows on the Colorado River through lakes Powell and Mead, and works closely with water agencies, including the Southern Nevada Water Authority, to supply water for more than 20 million people and millions of acres of agriculture in Southern California, Arizona and Nevada.

Federal investigators cited numerous e-mails from Wahl to Environmental Defense and two other federal agencies, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, that were discovered after Wahl left the Yuma office in May.

One issue that Wahl provided information on was the proposed Drop 2 reservoir that would capture Colorado River water before it reaches Mexico's Sea of Cortez. Some environmentalists are concerned that the reservoir and an accompanying project, lining of the All-American Canal near the Mexican border, will adversely affect rare wildlife in the Colorado River delta and nearby desert.

President Bush on Wednesday signed legislation authorizing the two water projects, and designating the Southern Nevada Water Authority as the source for funding of the $84 million reservoir project. In exchange for funding the reservoir, the Water Authority could, for up to seven years, take enough water from Lake Mead to serve about 120,000 households.

In its intent-to-terminate letter, the bureau accused Wahl of being "in regular contact with organizations who you described as having an adversarial relationship with the Yuma office and who you believed had threatened litigation over the proposed Drop 2 Project."

Wahl also identified specific documents that environmentalists could request under the Freedom of Information Act .

The government specifically complained that Wahl released internal management information regarding the seismic stability of a river-water desalting plant in Yuma.

Releasing that information "was subversive in nature and hindered the accomplishment of agency work," Assistant Area Manager Arthur Valverde said in a September letter spelling out the reason for Wahl's termination.

Bureau spokesman Barry Wirth declined to comment on the issue.

"The Bureau of Reclamation," he said, "is unable to comment on pending actions regarding human resource activities."

Wahl declined to comment about the termination. He is being represented by the national environmental group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. The Washington, D.C.-based group noted that Wahl's wife, a temporary clerk typist in the Albuquerque office, was also fired.

Paula Dinerstein, the group's senior counsel, said Wahl was fired for doing his job - providing environmental information to groups with an interest in the bureau's activities.

"These charges are both insulting and illegal. Public servants cannot be fired simply for telling inconvenient truths," she said. "Part of the Bureau of Reclamation's problem is that it apparently regards environmentalists as enemies."

Dinerstein said that she expects to have a formal notice of "final action" terminating the employee, who has been on leave since September, within several weeks. Wahl's legal representatives are arguing the bureau is breaking national environmental laws in the termination. Wahl, a civil servant, also has a guaranteed appeal process.

The problem is not with Wahl but with the bureau, Dinerstein said.

"The Bureau of Reclamation, particularly the office that he was in Yuma, Ariz., was really making a mockery of public compliance. It was trying to avoid public comment and trying to avoid compliance with the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act.

"Mr. Wahl was trying to do his job as an environmental officer. He was trying to do the job that he was told to do in terms of his job description. Apparently that wasn't really what they wanted him to do."