March 2005
OXFORD, Miss. -- The state of Mississippi has sued Memphis for tapping into groundwater formations to serve the Tennessee city's water wells...
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."
This, reported from the hometown of the American writer William Faulkner ("United States novelist (originally Falkner) who wrote about people in the southern United States (1897-1962)") reminds me a tad about the original dispute between Iraq and Kuwait as reported in the press. Kuwait had set up oil wells right at the "line in the sand" that the British drew between Iraq and Kuwait, probably in the 1920s, and Iraq got mad because their scientists stated 80% of the underground oil field was in Iraq and Kuwait was pumping it all over to their side. When negotiations were called, it was reported, Kuwait was absent from the table, which may have led to the original invasion of Kuwait by Iraq it was thought.
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