Susan Lea Smith Email and Phone Number

Susan Lea Smith Professor Susan Lea Smith teaches environmental and natural resources law at Willamette University. At the beginning of her career, she served as counsel to the mining and oil & gas industries with respect to regulatory compliance in conducting exploration and development activities. In that capacity, she wrote portions of American Law of Mining, the standard treatise on American mining law. She became Assistant Chief of the U.S. Department of Justice, Environment and Natural Resources Division, Environment Defense Section, responsible for enforcement of wetlands protection laws, federal facility compliance, and defending litigation against the US Environmental Protection Agency and other federal environmental regulatory agencies. Since joining the Willamette law faculty in 1989, Susan has served as counsel to community and environmental groups on mining, wetlands, and other natural resources matters. She has written extensively on environmental crimes and enforcement, water allocation and quality, environmental issues at federal facilities, and sustainability. Susan was part of an international project with scholars and scientists assessing the environmental impacts from U.S. military bases in Okinawa. Susan is active at the United Nations, regional, and national governments in advocating for universal access to clean water and sanitation and other water justice issues. She is a water justice activist who served as Executive Director of JUST Water, fundraised in the Central Pacific Conference UCC for water, sanitation, and health promotion projects in rural Haiti and other developing countries, helped Mouvman Peyizan Papye implement projects from 2008 - 2015, served on the CPC Justice and Witness team, and currently represents the national United Church of Christ regarding water justice issues. She is a Commissioner of the World Council of Churches Commission on Climate Justice and Sustainable Development. She belongs to the Commission's Land, Water, and Food working group. She served as the North American representative on the Ecumenical Water Network, World Council of Churches international reference group through 2022. She’ll talk your ear off about any aspect of water, if you let her!