U.S. Water News Online
OXFORD, Miss. -- The state of Mississippi has sued Memphis for tapping into groundwater formations to serve the Tennessee city's water wells.
The lawsuit, filed in early February in U.S. District Court in Oxford, had been kept under seal.
The complaint asks the court to order Memphis to start obtaining a portion of its water from the Mississippi River, which would require Memphis to build a treatment plant costing millions.
Unlike other water disputes in the Southeast that have involved the use of rivers, the Mississippi case asks for repayment for underground water resources "owned by, and subject to the right of use" by the state.
The lawsuit names the city of Memphis and Memphis Light, Gas and Water Division as defendants.
"MLGW's use of the aquifer has not harmed this vital resource in the past, nor will our anticipated future use pose a threat," utility president Joseph Lee said.
MLGW general counsel Max Williams said that contrary to the claims in the suit, "our use of the aquifer does not create any liability to the state of Mississippi."
MLGW withdraws 160 million to 200 million gallons a day from the Memphis Sand aquifer. The aquifer is a deep zone of saturated sand and gravel that filters the water trickling through it to a high level of purity.
The Memphis Sand extends into portions of Mississippi, Arkansas and Kentucky.
Recent studies have shown that the flow of water in the Memphis Sand has been altered by the "cones of depression" beneath MLGW's well fields, three of which extend to within about 2 1/2 miles of the Mississippi line. Studies since the late 1990s have shown that these cones, or low areas in the water table of the aquifer, have sucked water northward from areas beneath Mississippi.
In parts of DeSoto County, the water levels in wells have been dropping a foot or more each year, with the declines blamed on both local pumping and withdrawals in Memphis.
In its lawsuit, Mississippi claims that one-third of the water Memphis pumps -- about 60 million gallons a day -- comes from south of the state line. This water is "unreasonably and unlawfully diverted," causing harm to the aquifer, it says.
The lawsuit asks the court to order Memphis to halt its "excessive" withdrawals and "use water from other nearby abundant and available sources, such as the Mississippi River."
Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee embarked on an aquifer study in recent years and continue to pursue research.
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