WASHINGTON -- Environmental and commercial fishing groups asked the White House yesterday to explain the role President Bush's top political aide played in developing water policy in the Northwest.

The request followed the disclosure that White House political adviser Karl Rove briefed dozens of political appointees at the Interior Department a year and a half ago about diverting water in the Klamath River in Oregon to help nearby farmers.

The White House called the request ''a public relations maneuver by special interest groups.''

Republican leaders in the area sought to help the farmers, a key voting constituency. The Interior Department increased the water supply to drought-stricken farms several months later despite environmentalists' warnings that diverting water from the river would kill threatened coho salmon.

Word of Rove's January 2002 briefing, which took place following a trip he took with President Bush to Oregon, was first reported last week by The Wall Street Journal. Rove made a second trip to Oregon before the Interior Department made its decision increasing the water flow to farms.

''The public has an interest in uncovering the full extent of this political influence over the future of the Klamath River ecosystem,'' stated a letter by Earthjustice on behalf of 10 groups.

Senator John Kerry, one of the Democratic presidential candidates, called on the Interior Department's inspector general to look into whether ''political pressure from the White House is intimidating staff and influencing policy.''

''The Bush administration needs to understand that federal agencies like the Interior Department are not a division of the Republican National Committee and at their disposal to give out political favors,'' said the Massachusetts Democrat.

Interior Department spokesman Mark Pfeifle, who attended Rove's January 2002 meeting, said the Klamath water diversion issue took up ''probably 30 seconds to a minute'' of a 25-minute presentation.

Pfeifle said the rest of Rove's presentation focused on matters such as outreach to suburban voters interested in environmental issues and to labor unions supporting oil drilling in the Alaskan wilderness.

© 2003 The Associated Press

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