WASHINGTON (AP) — The Interior Department is proposing to award one of the first contracts for federal water in perpetuity to a powerful rural California water district that had long employed Secretary David Bernhardt as a lobbyist.

Conservation groups are demanding fuller disclosure of financial terms and an environmental review of the proposed deal for the California's Westlands Water District, the nation's largest agricultural water supplier. The water district serves some of country's wealthiest and most politically influential corporate farmers.

Bernhardt served as a lobbyist for Westland...