Uri Shani, the head of the Water Authority, is leaving after four years on the job.
By Avi Bar-Eli

Uri Shani, the head of the Water Authority, is leaving after four years on the job. Shani started in December 2006 and was scheduled to serve until the end of 2011, but he recently informed National Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau that he would be leaving at the end of this year and returning to his job as a professor at the Hebrew University

Despite serving during a particularly stormy and problematic period for Israel’s water systems, Shani, 60, told TheMarker he was leaving on a good note.

“I regret that during my tenure Israel has been in a water crisis, mostly due to the ongoing drought and the lack of investment,” he said. But because of the authority’s actions, citizens did not suffer and always had water, he said.

Shani’s tenure was marked by a number of crises and disagreements with his political bosses. He led the decision to more than triple the volume of desalinated water and speed up the construction of desalinization plants. He pushed public campaigns to save water and his most controversial act was the so-called drought tax, which was later frozen by the Knesset due to public outcry.

Water rates were also raised 40%, in an effort to set the price to reflect the real cost of production, for the first time. The authority was only established in January 2007 to replace the old Water Commission, and gather all regulation, planning, supervision and enforcement of water matters under the new body.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/business/water-authority-head-quits-1.314693