W	hen Bob Johnson took his seat as the commissioner for the federal Bureau of Reclamation, the Bureau got a career man who has had a hand in the planning and construction of the agency’s biggest projects, and the West has gotten a man who knows the Colorado River, and all its attendant challenges.

Better yet, some say, the Western states have a friend in Washington, D.C., experienced and knowledgeable about these important issues.

The confirmation of Johnson, 55, in September 2006, was the apex of a career whose seeds were planted while he was a boy growing up on a farm 90 miles northeast of Reno, Nev. Academic degrees in agriculture and economics put him squarely on the path to the Bureau, but he hadn’t even considered working for the Bureau, which is the country’s largest water wholesaler, providing irrigation water for one in five Western farmers.

The 348 reservoirs the Bureau administers have a total storage capacity of 245 million acre-feet of water. Reclamation brings water to more than 31 million people and provides 20 percent of Western farmers (140,000) with water to irrigate 10 million acres of farmland that produces 60 percent of the nation’s vegetables.

Reclamation is also the nation’s seventh largest power utility and second largest producer of hydroelectric power in the West. Its 58 power plants provide more than 40 billion kilowatt hours of energy each year—equivalent to the energy provided by 80 million barrels of crude oil. These plants serve six million homes and generate nearly $1 billion in power revenues for the U.S. Treasury.

Johnson is a highly regarded leader, viewed as fair and a consensus builder—a vital skill on display when he was regional director for the Bureau during the sometimes-contentious Quantification Settlement Agreement talks that reaffirmed California’s portion of the Colorado River and set up a framework for reducing its dependence on the imports. They’re skills he’ll need as the region grapples with drought, growth and other issues throughout the West.

“He comes in with great credentials,” said John Keys, who served as Bureau Commissioner from 2001 to 2006. He cited Johnson’s experience with the QSA, the interim surplus guidelines for the Colorado River, a multi-species conservation plan and other Western water issues on the forefront in the past decade.

Those who have been in the commissioner’s chair say that Johnson will face a whole series of challenges that, while different than what he’s done on the Colorado River, will have some similarities, such as the need to get a wide range of interests to agree on potential actions. It is his ability to work with myriad personalities and political issues that is his strength, according to several people who have worked with him.

“Bob has an ability to pick out those differing issues, or interests, and help people get to a common point of collaboration,” said Bill Rinne, a longtime colleague of Johnson’s. “He is outstanding in his leadership.”

Keys, who like Johnson, was first a regional director before being named Commissioner, found that one of the biggest challenges of the position was transitioning from a focus on one area, to an area across 17 states.

“As regional director, you focus on regional or basin-wide issues, and there is a certain amount of competition for money and good people,” Keys said. “As commissioner, you have all five regions and there’s no more competition—you [are expected] to see what’s best for the whole bureau.

	Colorado River southwest of Palo Verde, Calif. Photo by Sally Aristei

“There are big issues out there in other places besides the Colorado Basin. And when they say the work is multiplied by five, it’s actually eight or 10 times [because] you have the five regions, and you have the other bureaus, parts of [the Department of] Interior and outside organizations to work with,” he said. “The key is having good people with you.”

Rinne, who was Deputy Commissioner for Operations under Keys, and one of those “good people” to whom he referred, agreed.

“The big transition for me was having issues coming in West-wide to address. Initially you often don’t have the personal relationships built up in some of these areas, and don’t know all of the ins and outs of the projects and their histories,” Rinne said. “That is always a challenge, but he is well suited and up to the test.”

The issues confronting him are among some of the most contentious, including balancing environmental concerns with the growing needs of customers, Johnson said. His to-do list includes overseeing negotiations on several projects: the Klamath Basin and the water rights of farmers versus the Endangered Species Act; the Platte River recovery effort in Nebraska; CALFED and the Central Valley Project in California and an Indian water rights settlement with the Central Arizona Project.

Another goal is to implement the Bureau’s Managing for Excellence program, based on a National Academy of Sciences report that made several recommendations on staffing levels, and operations and maintenance policies, such as creating greater transparency in the agency. Johnson said he hopes to complete that initiative by the end of 2007.

Despite his need to focus on the bigger picture, Metropolitan officials consider Johnson’s appointment a benefit to Southern California.

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