Peter Gleick Reinstated at Pacific Institute The water and climate expert Peter Gleick, a scientist who masqueraded as a board member of a conservative organization to gain access to its confidential financial information, has been reinstated as president of the Pacific Institute, the environmentally minded think tank that he founded. The institute posted a notice at its Web site on Wednesday saying that an independent investigation had confirmed Dr. Gleick's account of the false pretenses under which he gained access to internal documents of the Chicago-based Heartland Institute in February. The documents contained confidential details about the budget, plan and donors to the institute, which aggressively disputes that global warming is under way. The statement said the Pacific Institute's board of directors had accepted Dr. Gleick's apology for misrepresenting himself. It added that no other staff member was involved in his subterfuge. Nancy Ross, a spokeswoman for the Pacific Institute, declined to release specific details on the findings of the investigation, saying it was an internal personnel matter. By saying that its investigation, carried out by unknown parties, confirmed Dr. Gleick's account, the institute was implicitly backing the scientist's claim that he was not responsible for cobbling together a document labeled a fake by Heartland, which he disseminated along with other genuine ones. The bogus document spoke of effective ways for "dissuading science teachers from teaching science" and of "cultivating" respected writers on climate issues. Dr. Gleick said he had received it "in the mail." The Heartland Institute, which has a Web site related to the document release that Web site it calls "Fakegate," responded scornfully to Dr. Gleick's reinstatement. As near as we can tell, this was not an investigation. It was a whitewash," the institute's president, Joseph Bast, said in a statement. Reactions to the Gleick affair have varied widely. Some environmentalists have praised his actions, saying that the risks posed by climate change are so great that using misrepresentation to uncover details about a group like Heartland is justified. But many others in the environmental camp, including his own board, said that such conduct was unworthy of a scientist, particularly one of Dr. Gleick's stature. The Heartland Institute and its supporters, meanwhile, focused on the false document, repeatedly charging that Dr. Gleick cooked it up with help from the materials he obtained under false pretenses. No one has stepped forward to claim authorship of the document. It remains to be seen whether Dr. Gleick will maintain his highly prominent role in public hearings and conferences on environmental issues like climate change and water scarcity. The latter has been a central focus of his work and the Pacific Institute's in recent decades.