Water, water, everywhere, and not one dropto own?

That’s the question one internationally known environmental law expert will take up Thursday (April 1) at West Virginia University’s College of Law. Joseph L. Sax will discussThe Public Right in Water, From Olden Times to Our Time,in a 10 a.m. talk at the Law Center’s Lugar Courtroom.

Sax is appearing at WVU as part of the national Order of the Coif Distinguished Lecturer Series for 2004, a program which brings top legal minds to campuses across the country to discuss the law issues of the day. His lecture is open to the public.

He has spent four decades delving into that question of just whoif anyoneowns the water that splashes from taps and courses in rivers that cross from state boundary to state boundary.

Sax is a former counselor to the U.S. Secretary of the Interior and has taught law at Colorado University, Utah University, Stanford, the University of Michigan and the University of California at Berkeley.

He has also been a visiting professor at the University of Paris and has lectured at the Ecole Des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, in Paris. He currently advises the Interior Department on water issues pertaining to the Lower Colorado River Basin.

Sax is the author ofDefending the Environment(1970);Mountains without Handrails(1980); andPlaying Darts with a Rembrant(2000). He has also written 140 articles for scholarly journals while co-authoring three policy manuals on water rights and reclamation law.

He is a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Chicago Law School. He holds an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the Illinois Institute of Technology and is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.