Participants will plumb issues ranging from the resolution of century-old tribal water rights disputes to the recent global trend toward water commodification.

"There's a lot of talk in the United States about water banking, trading water rights and water marketing," said Adell Amos, director of the UO's Environmental and Natural Law Resources Law Program. "What would it mean if water was bought and sold on a commodities market? What would the implications of that be?"

The third annual Northwest Tribal Water Rights Conference at the law center next Thursday and Friday draws representatives from 14 tribes in Oregon, Washington and Idaho.

Water rights disputes affect everyone living and working in a river basin - farmers, fishermen, power generators, residents. But the question of who gets what amount of water almost always begins with the tribes, because their water rights are most often senior.

The main speaker will be Michael Bogert, counselor to the secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior

His speech is entitled "Sovereignty, Certainty and Opportunity: Secretary Kempthorne's Vision for Tribal Water Rights Settlements in the West."

Bogert will be a draw for people trying to divine the new Interior secretary's positions.

"It's an opportunity for the people in the Northwest to really hear from the person in the Department of the Interior who will be involved in much of the decision-making," Amos said.

The issue of tribal water rights is prominent in the Klamath Basin in Southern Oregon and Northern California.

There, the Klamath Tribes are fighting farmers for a larger share of the rights to Klamath water. Farmers, tribes, hydroelectric dams and fisherman all place competing demands on the waterway.

One presenter at the conference will be Bud Ullman, attorney for the Klamath Tribes, which are involved in litigation rather than than the Interior's negotiated settlement process.

Ullman said he plans to speak on making "more promises of water than nature gives us to deliver with every year," he said.

"What the conference is trying to do is lay the groundwork for what solutions may exist

and how to pursue them," he said.

Bogert was the Seattle-based regional administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Region 10 before Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne was tapped last March by President Bush to replace Gale Norton as the Secretary of the Interior.

Kempthorne hired Bogert for the Interior Department leadership team.

One big question is whether Kempthorne will be willing use the negotiated settlement process to quantify tribal water rights in Western watersheds.

The process brings all the agencies within the Interior Department to the negotiating table and allows for creative solutions, Amos said.

"Some tribes have sometimes fared very well under these settlements," she said.