By Dick Foster
Rocky Mountain News Southern Bureau

   Dale Shaffer, who led his company’s controversial attempt to pump billions of gallons of ground-water from the San Luis Valley to Front Range cities, announced his resignation as president of American Water Development Inc, Friday.
   The 48-year-old Shaffer, one-time investment banker, former president of the Denver Water Board and president of AWDI since February 1988, said he was leaving to pursue other business interests.
   “I’ve been talking with them for a year or so about some other things I wanted to participate in, and this just seemed like a good time to do it,” Shaffer said.
   Shaffer’s departure from AWDI follows the company’s defeat in November in its first attempt to obtain water rights in the San Luis Valley to pump up to 200,000 acre-feet of water – about 62 billion gallons annually – for sale to the Front Range.
 The proposal met with widespread opposition among valley residents, and State Water Court Judge Roger Ogburn ruled against AWDI’s application for the water.
   Shaffer said his departure was not related to the company’s defeat, but said the conclusion of the trial after years of preparation “was a good transition point” for him to depart the company.
   Shaffer and company spokesman Jim Monaghan said AWDI’s pursuit of water rights in the valley would continue according to plan despite Shaffer’s departure.
   “I wouldn’t anticipate any great change,” said Monaghan.
   Shaffer will temporarily be replaced by James D. Ireland III, 42, of New York, chairman of AWDI’s executive committee, which devised the policy the company has been pursuing in the valley.
   Monaghan said AWDI faces “some tactical decisions” on whether to pursue a state Supreme Court appeal of Ogburn’s ruling, or whether to begin a new application for the water rights under state’s tributary water rights provisions.
   Shaffer said his new pursuits would be “with some Denver friends of mine, but we’re not really ready to put out publicly what we’re doing.”