By HEATHER NELLIS

For the Express

MAYFIELD — The Hudson River-Black River Regulating District’s interim executive director says he is wearing two hats during the state agency’s recent transition period.

Michael A. Clark, the Hudson River area administrator, said Monday he is assuming the responsibilities of both positions, as the district board has yet to appoint anyone as executive director in the wake of the retirement of former Executive Director Glenn A. LaFave Wednesday.

“I can’t speak for the board, but I would imagine they might appoint me,” he said, guessing that appointment may be made at the board’s meeting in Saratoga Springs in September. “It would be an interim position, so it implies additional action would be necessary to appoint someone permanently.”

Clark said he didn’t ask for the executive director position.

“I don’t have any idea how my name arrived at that,” he said.

Clark started working for the regulating district in 2008 after a two-year stint as the Amsterdam city engineer under former Mayor Joseph Emanuele. He worked in the same capacity for the city of Johnstown for five years.

Regardless of who is appointed, Clark said his top priority continues to be the Hudson River area’s financial situation. It found itself without a means of generating revenue after a federal Court of Appeals judge ruled the district’s 80-year-old practice of taxing hydropower plants was illegal, the result of a lawsuit filed against the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

“Getting that funding stream back is our main focus,” he said.

The regulating district undertook an apportionment study that eventually resulted in levying $4.5 million against five Capital District counties, who in turn sued them.

Now, the regulating district is waiting for American Economics Group to finish an external reapportionment study, and FERC has contracted Oakridge Laboratory to conduct a headwater beneficiary study.

“It’s a working product. Nothing is final,” said Clark of the projects.

If he is appointed to the position, Clark believes he will continue to be stationed at the district’s Sacandaga Field Office in Mayfield.