DWP Los Angeles Chief Steps Down

By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
Published: October 2, 2009

LOS ANGELES — The head of the city’s water department, who lately has faced criticism over a series of major water main breaks and has had to defend conservation programs and planned rate increases, resigned Friday to take a job with the Clinton Climate Initiative.
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H. David Nahai, who had been general manager and chief executive of the Water and Power Department since 2007 and a commissioner for two years before that, said in a letter announcing his move that his new job would allow him to focus on “the central challenge of our time, global warming.”

The Clinton Climate Initiative, where he will be a senior adviser, is an effort by former President Bill Clinton’s foundation to study and find solutions to climate change.

Los Angeles residents and the water department’s engineers have been baffled in the past month by a series of major water pipe failures across the city, buckling and flooding streets on several occasions and in one instance partly swallowing a fire truck. The department is investigating the cause.

Officials said privately that Mr. Nahai’s stepping down had nothing to do with the breaks. Through a spokesman, Mr. Nahai declined to be interviewed.

Heading the Water and Power Department of a sprawling city in a semidesert is never an easy job, and Mr. Nahai, a former real estate lawyer and Iranian émigré who was educated at some of Britain’s most prestigious schools, often defended the department in his scholarly, British-inflected English.

Just Wednesday Mr. Nahai sought to reassure the City Council that the department was on top of the water main breaks.

He has also sought to deflect criticism over proposed water and electric rate increases and a drought-induced mandatory conservation program that limits lawn sprinkling to just two days, among other steps.

Water consumption has dropped to record levels, and environmental leaders have praised Mr. Nahai’s stewardship of the department. In his letter, he listed numerous achievements, including an increased use of renewable energy and fewer power failures.