Water shaped commissioner’s career

Robert Johnson was shaped by Reclamation before he even knew what it was.

The Lovelock native grew up on an alfalfa farm and cattle ranch in Pershing County, a few miles from the Humboldt River in Northern Nevada. To irrigate their 640-acre spread, his parents used water diverted from the Humboldt at Rye Patch Dam, a U.S. Bureau of Reclamation project built in 1936.

Like any farmer, Johnson's father often talked about water, especially when it came to upstream users who took more than their share. But Johnson never gave much thought to the way it all worked or to the federal agency that made it possible.

"Interestingly, as a kid growing up I didn't know what the Bureau of Reclamation was," Johnson said. "When they offered me a job, I had to run to the library and look the Bureau of Reclamation up."

More than three decades later, Johnson is retiring as commissioner of the bureau, a top post that required a presidential appointment and Senate confirmation. His last day is Jan. 2.

"All I've ever done is work for the Bureau of Reclamation," the 57-year-old said. "I never had a day when I didn't feel challenged and when I didn't enjoy going to work."

After graduating from high school in Lovelock, Johnson got his bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Nevada, Reno. He was considering a doctoral degree and a career in academia when Reclamation came calling in 1975.

Until then, he said, "I had never considered a job in the water business."

At 24, Johnson went to work as an agricultural economist in the bureau's water resource planning office in Sacramento, Calif. Four years later, he transferred to Boulder City to work on cost-benefit analyses for the bureau's Lower Colorado Region headquarters.

His new post was roughly twice as far from his family in Lovelock, but Johnson was happy to be back in the Silver State.

"Even though it was Southern Nevada, it was still Nevada," he said.

Johnson would spend most of his 33-year career in Boulder City, where he headed the river operations division before being named regional director in 1995.

From its office overlooking Lake Mead, the bureau manages almost 700 miles of the Colorado River as it passes through Arizona, Nevada and Southern California. The Las Vegas Valley draws about 90 percent of its drinking water from that stretch of the river.

Johnson was there at a historic moment, a period of transition when the seven Colorado River states began to push against water allotments that once had seemed almost inexhaustible.

Much of his early work in Boulder City involved the Central Arizona Project, a 336-mile aqueduct from Lake Havasu to Tucson that took 20 years and more than $4 billion to build.

"Back in the '80s it was seen as a lifeline," said Johnson, who worked extensively on the development of the project. "Arizona was over-drafting groundwater by over a million acre-feet a year. Basically, the Central Arizona Project solved that problem.

"It was just an honor and a privilege to be a part of something so important."

More recently, Johnson played a key role in three major agreements that now govern the way the Colorado River is managed in good times and bad.

First came new rules for divvying surplus water in high-flow years. Those rules were finalized in 2001, just as the current drought was taking hold.

Then came the 2003 settlement, six years in the making, that put California on the path to reducing its overuse of the river.

Last year, the seven states and the federal government signed off on a sweeping agreement to share shortages and operate the river in times of extreme drought.

"I had the good fortune of being there during all those discussions," Johnson said. "My signature is on a lot of stuff."

With the help of its 6,000 employees, the Bureau of Reclamation operates Hoover Dam and facilities in 17 Western states, supplying water to more than 31 million people and enough hydroelectric power for 6 million homes.

For more than a century, the bureau and its projects have played a major role in opening the arid West to massive agricultural and residential development.

Without Reclamation, Johnson said, "There wouldn't be 25 million people in the (Colorado River) Basin. You wouldn't have Las Vegas."

Johnson became the nation's 20th Reclamation commissioner on Sept. 30, 2006, when the Senate confirmed his appointment.

He said his replacement will have a lot to contend with, especially on the Colorado, where explosive growth, drought and the growing spectre of climate change are taking a toll on water supplies.

Johnson called the drought "a big concern, no doubt about it," and said Lake Mead is "lower than it's been at anytime in my career."

The other big challenge for his successor will be "dealing with Mexico" on issues of water quality and the sharing of shortages, Johnson said.

The next commissioner also might be involved in initial talks on a cross-border effort to build large-scale ocean desalinaton plants that some see as the region's only hope to meet future water demands.

Then there is climate change, which has spawned dire predictions for the Colorado River, including permanent drought-like conditions and a stagnant, muddy pool where Lake Mead used to be.

It's not just the Colorado that faces trouble, either. Most Western rivers have seen, or will see, impacts from climate change, Johnson said. "Our work is more important than ever."

Johnson is the second Nevadan to hold Reclamation's top post. The late Bob Broadbent served as commissioner for five years during President Ronald Reagan's administration.

Tradition dictates that presidential appointees resign before a change in administration, but Johnson said he doesn't feel like he is being forced out of a job.

"It's just the right time for me personally as well."

Johnson hasn't decided what he's going to do next, but he and his wife, Mary, have settled on a destination. After a lifetime in Nevada, where Mary logged 25 years as a public school teacher, the Johnsons are moving to Scottsdale, Ariz., so they can be closer to their son and daughter.

Robert Johnson should feel right at home. Scottsdale gets most of its water from the Central Arizona Project.

Contact reporter Henry Brean at hbrean@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0350.