Aerial of Colorado River running through sandtone canyon — The Colorado River supplies water to seven U.S. states for more than 35 million people and irrigates more than 5 million acres of crops. (Getty)

Karrigan Bork’s Award-Winning Water Rights Solution

Law Professor Wins Morrison Prize for Most Impactful Sustainability-Related Legal Paper in North America

by Malia Reiss
March 26, 2024

Karrigan Börk, UC Davis professor of law and Associate Director at the Center for Watershed Sciences, has been awarded the prestigious $10,000 Morrison Prize for his paper on water rights. The Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University recognizes Börk’s paper as “the most impactful sustainability-related legal academic paper published in North America” for 2023.

Börk’s winning paper, “Water Exaction Rights,” published in the Harvard Environmental Law Review, proposes a solution to address current and future water crises in the US: an exactions framework.

“When you turn on your tap and you get water, you pay for the delivery of that water, for the infrastructure, and for the business to run. But there's no cost associated with the actual water itself,” said Börk. “We don't pay for the damage that water use does to public resources.”'

Read the full story at UC Davis News