Paul L. Bloom, a leading New Mexico water and energy lawyer who also directed the Carter administration's attack against Big Oil price fixers for bilking Americans out of billions of dollars, died Friday at a hospice near his home in Chevy Chase, Md., his family said Sunday. He was 70.

Bloom's son, Adam, said his father died after battles with pancreatic and colon cancer.

In New Mexico, Bloom was known in the late 1990s and early 2000s for his work on behalf of several tribal communities — particularly the Zuni, who credited him with saving the Zuni Salt Lake from a coal strip-mining operation proposed by an Arizona utility company.

In 2003, the company, the Salt River Project, abandoned its efforts to create the Fence Lake Mine.

Before joining the Carter administration in 1978, Bloom served as the chief counsel for the New Mexico state engineer. In 1966, Bloom, as a young lawyer in the state engineer's office, filed the Aamodt water-rights lawsuit in federal court. Congress is only now, 43 years later, considering a proposed settlement, designed to resolve water-rights issues for pueblos and non-Indians in the Pojoaque Valley.

In a message to Bloom's family, former Gov. Bruce King described Bloom as "an exceptionally gifted public servant. As Chief Counsel to the legendary State Engineer Steve Reynolds and the New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission, he drafted much of the definitive legislation and developed the rules and regulations that established the doctrine of prior appropriation as the standard of water law in the Western United States."

Later, as a contract attorney to the governor's office, local governments and acequias, King said, Bloom "brought cases before New Mexico courts that often established precedents for future legal disputes."

Former Zuni Gov. Malcolm B. Bowekaty, in a letter to the family expressing the tribe's condolences, said: "Paul helped us tremendously in a difficult battle on one of our most sacred sites — the Zuni Salt Lake (Ma'k'yayanne).

"His legal expertise and litigation strategies turned near defeat into a victory. Our religious leaders shared important information that lent strength to the legal tactics — after four years we won. Paul and his colleagues from (the Santa Fe law firm of) White, Koch and Kelly deserve credit in our hard fought battle."

Bowekaty added that Bloom's "honest interest in Zuni culture kindled some sense of affinity to his own Jewish heritage. ... My Tribal Council used to tease him that he was a reincarnated Bow Priest — our historical front line warriors."

As special council for compliance in President Carter's Energy Department, Bloom was the administration's lead attack dog against Big Oil's alleged price-fixing and collusion, in which oil companies were accused of violating President Nixon's price controls on crude oil and other petroleum products that were in effect from 1973 until 1981, when President Reagan ended them.

In a February 1987 article, the Washington Monthly noted that "for a comparatively minuscule federal investment, the program has achieved spectacular success, having so far generated some $6 billion in refunds to customers, payments to the government, and other forms of restitution. Proceeds have gone to schools and hospitals, to poor people and budget-slashed state governments, and even to help whittle down the federal deficit."

Bloom received national attention when, on the last day of the Carter administration, according to a New York Times report at the time, he distributed $4 million from a Standard Oil Co. settlement to four charities — the Salvation Army, the National Council of Churches, Catholic Charities and the National Jewish Welfare Appeal.

Bloom is survived by his wife, Marjorie of Chevy Chase, Md.; sons Adam of Manhattan, N.Y., and Judah of Redmond, Wash.; and a daughter, Ester of Brooklyn, N.Y.

A brother, David, lives in Santa Fe.

Funeral services were to be held today in Maryland.

Dennis Carroll can be reached at 986-3091 or dcarroll@sfnewmexican.com.