January 28, 2002
Trudy Harlow
(202) 513-0575
Mark Limbaugh Named as Reclamation's Director of External and Intergovernmental Affairs
WASHINGTON – Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner John W. Keys, III announced today the appointment of Mark Limbaugh of Fruitland, Idaho, former president of the Family Farm Alliance, as Reclamation’s Director of External and Intergovernmental Affairs.
In this position, Limbaugh oversees Reclamation’s Congressional and Legislative Affairs and Public Affairs activities. He also is the executive responsible for the bureau’s national relationships with federal, state and local governments, as well as citizen and other nongovernmental groups.
"Mark will be a key senior player in helping me achieve the Administration’s goals," Keys said. "His collaborative style and long association with Western water issues will help to ensure that those whose lives are affected by Reclamation’s actions are represented in the decision-making process."
Limbaugh was president of the Family Farm Alliance, a grassroots association that represents growers and water agencies in the 17 Western states, and served in other offices with the organization for a total of six years. He was Watermaster of Idaho’s Payette River and executive director of the Payette River Water Users Association, an organization active in protecting the region’s water rights. As Watermaster, Limbaugh managed the delivery of natural flow and storage water from two Reclamation reservoirs and one private reservoir system to more than 150,000 acres of irrigated farmland and several industrial and municipal water users.
As manager of the Payette River basin’s water bank, Limbaugh accounted for the lease and rental of approximately 160,000 acre-feet of storage water annually to farms in the basin and for water deliveries downstream for salmon protected under the Endangered Species Act. For the past five years, he was involved in the design, financing, installation and implementation of automated computer technology used in delivering and managing Payette River water.
Limbaugh also was co-founder of and facilitator for the Payette River Watershed Council, a highly successful grassroots organization involved in building consensus among the diverse water user interests in the Payette River basin.
Limbaugh has been actively involved in the Idaho Water Users Association in Boise and is a director of the U.S. Committee on Irrigation and Drainage. He chaired the Lower Payette River TMDL Watershed Advisory Group and was involved with the TMDL process as a member of the Snake River-Hells Canyon Public Advisory Team.
A native of southwestern Idaho and for many years an Idaho family farmer, Limbaugh earned his B.S. cum laude in 1978 from the University of Idaho. He then joined the accounting firm of Deloitte and Touche in Boise as a certified public accountant.
Limbaugh and his wife, Cindy, have four children and two grandchildren.
The Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation manages, develops, and protects water and related resources in an environmentally and economically sound manner in the interest of the American public. Reclamation serves as the fifth largest electric utility in the 17 Western states and the nation's largest wholesale water supplier.