Public and Private Rights to Water 

Western water law and policy govern the allocation and use of a
valued resource. In this session, two attorneys explain the public
and private aspects of water law and policy as they developed
in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The question of
public or private is central to any understanding of water and its
development in the West.
Jedediah Rogers, University of Utah Press, Chair/Comment
J. Craig Smith, Smith Hartvigsen law firm: Water: Public Resource
or Private Property? Utah’s Conflicting Water Law and Policy
Jack Ray, Utah Waterfowl Association and Great Salt Lake
Alliance: Public Hunting Access on Private Land and Water: Early
Twentieth-century Disputes