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Mammoth Is Interesting

Friday's scheduled ALIMAR Awards Dinner at Main Lodge has been postponed because the speaker, David Nahai of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, has to keep mum until he's confirmed as the new general manager of the department.

Nahai, an activist attorney with an environmental slant, was nominated to run the sprawling bureaucracy last Oct. 29, after he'd accepted the keynote speaker initiation to the event, organized by Andrea Mead Lawrence to honor The Friends of the Inyo for that organization's work in the Eastern Sierra.

"City attorneys are not allowing him to make public appearances in November," Lawrence said in a statement on Monday, Nov. 5.

"Mr. Nahai will play a critical role in L.A. that substantially affects the future of the city's relationship with the Eastern Sierra, and so ALIMAR has decided to reschedule the award dinner so that residents can hear from Mr. Nahai, said Lawrence, the founder of the Andrea Lawrence Institute for Mountains and Rivers (ALIMAR).

"Mr. Nahai has reaffirmed his interest in opening a dialog with Eastern Sierra residents early in the new year and an announcement will be made as soon as a specific date is confirmed."

Nahai, 54, is an ally of L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

In making the nomination, Villaraigosa is banking on the city making good its vow to make renewable energy sources 20% of its portfolio by 2010.

According to a report in the L.A. Times, Nahai's nomination has the backing of several key environmentalists, who have lobbied the mayor's office and at least two city council members for his appointment. The council must confirm the move before it is official.

Nahai, who was born in Tehran and raised in England, has spent a decade on the Regional Water Quality Control Board. He was named by Villaraigosa just days after Ron Deaton, the former DWP general manager, announced he was retiring for medical reasons.