Missouri's environmental director announced Monday that he was resigning to take a job to help oversee a $20 billion fund for people harmed by the Gulf oil spill.

Mark Templeton, the director of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources since 2009, said he was resigning effective Wednesday to become the executive director of the Office of the Independent Trustees of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Trust. The fund was established by BP PLC and is administered by two trustees — John Martin, a former federal judge in New York; and Kent Syverd, the dean of the Washington University law school in St. Louis.

BP made a $3 billion initial deposit into the trust fund and an additional $2 billion is to be deposited in the last quarter of 2010. After that, $1.25 billion will be deposited per quarter.

Kenneth Feinberg, an appointee of President Barack Obama's administration, is handling claims from the compensation fund.

BP spokeswoman Jessie Baker confirmed Monday that Templeton had been hired. She said the decision was made by the fund's trustees independent of BP.

Templeton's tenure in Missouri government was tinged by controversy over the handling of E. coli bacteria tests from the Lake of the Ozarks last summer. It started after revelations that state environmental officials waited about a month before releasing test results showing high E. coli levels in the lake. The dispute prompted an investigation from a state Senate committee.

Gov. Jay Nixon last year suspended Templeton for more than two weeks without pay after additional revelations that a lake beach was not closed despite high levels of E. coli. The Department of Natural Resources developed new procedures for handling bacteria data and this year has reported test results promptly.

In a resignation letter submitted to the governor and obtained by The Associated Press, Templeton highlighted how the DNR used federal stimulus money to promote weatherization, energy efficiency and for environmental programs. He also pointed to changes in lab-result reporting that improved public access to data.

"I greatly appreciated the opportunity to move Missouri forward on environmental, energy, and other natural resource issues, and I intend to continue to focus my professional efforts in these areas," Templeton wrote in his letter.

A DNR spokesman said Templeton was unavailable for further comment.

Templeton is from Olivette near St. Louis and worked on environmental and sustainability issues for the consulting firm McKinsey & Co. from 2001 to 2005. He joined Missouri government after working as the associate dean of finance and chief operating officer of Yale Law School.

Nixon said Monday he was naming longtime aide Kip Stetzler to be the acting director of the Department of Natural Resources. Stetzler currently is the director of the governor's western Missouri office and had been an interim state insurance agency director. He also worked for Nixon in the attorney general's office starting in 2000.