(2007-12-27) Water Czar Directed State Agency For A Record 15 Years

'Water czar' directed state agency for a record 15 years. David N. Kennedy, who faced the challenges of a five-year drought and three major floods during his record 15 years as director of the California Department of Water Resources in the 1980s and ‘90s, has died. He was 71.

Kennedy was appointed director of the Department of Water Resources, California’s leading water management agency, by then-Gov. George Deukmejian in 1983. In 1991, then-Gov. Pete Wilson reappointed him to the job of managing the agency’s $900-million annual budget and overseeing roughly 2,500 employees.

During Kennedy’s years as director, the water department expanded the State Water Project’s Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta pumping capacity and improved the system’s environmental safeguards, according to the agency’s news release.

During the 1987-92 drought -- one of the longest and most severe dry spells in California history -- Kennedy created and implemented the state-run Drought Water Bank, reportedly a first in water bank planning in the nation.

In 1994, Kennedy helped negotiate the Monterey Agreement, which made the delivery of State Water Project water among agricultural and urban customers more equitable. (That's one way to describe it.)