Colorado’s water-quality chief announced his resignation Tuesday amid his agency’s ongoing funding struggles and months of internal strife over its approach to protecting state waters.
Mark Pifher, head of the Water Quality Control Division for the past two years and a focus of recent controversies, will step down in two weeks as the state embarks on public hearings to set new standards for Colorado’s water bodies and revisions to pollution regulations.
Pifher said he had accomplished what he hoped to at the division and is seeking new challenges. He will become deputy director for Aurora Utilities in mid-May, a lower-profile position for an agency that faces major water-supply decisions.
Pifher denied that the ongoing struggle to obtain funding for his agency prompted his move.
In 2003, the state legislature stripped the Water Quality Control Division of all tax revenue, forcing Pifher to raise permit fees by 66 percent to break even.
In 2004, Pifher and his staff told lawmakers they needed 35 new employees or, otherwise, some programs would be “at risk of failure” in future years. But Gov. Bill Owens’ administration decided not to request the new hires in the budget, opting to wait until a Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights fix was adopted.
This year, lawmakers restored $1.88 million in general-fund revenues but terminated the fee increase, leaving the agency facing a $183,000 shortfall.
“That’s a chunk of money from an already lean division,” said Barbara Biggs, the legislative liaison for the Metro Wastewater Reclamation District, Denver’s sewage treatment provider.
The news of Pifher’s departure caught state health department employees and environmentalists off-guard but did not come as a surprise to some observers.
One prominent water lawyer said Pifher was undercut by his superiors during the crucial budgeting negotiations.
“It’s a failure of leadership,” said Melinda Kassen, an attorney for Trout Unlimited.
In December, The Denver Post documented the widespread use of waivers for polluters under Pifher and other state leaders. Since then, the agency has begun revising some of its regulations.
In recent weeks, debates about the philosophy and direction of the agency have been hot topics in work-group and committee meetings, state employees have said.
Pifher is a former private lawyer who won acclaim representing Colorado Springs and industries that have permits to discharge pollution into public waters.
Steve Glazer, a water advocate with the High Country Citizens Alliance, said he was initially apprehensive about Pifher’s track record but said Pifher came to support stronger recreational-water standards.
Glazer, however, hopes the Owens administration chooses someone with a different background when it replaces Pifher.
“I’d like to see a scientist there,” he said.
