Mississippi loses Supreme Court water fight with Tennessee

WASHINGTON – A unanimous Supreme Court connected Monday rejected a assertion that the Memphis, Tennessee, country has been taking h2o that belongs to Mississippi from an underground aquifer that sits beneath parts of some states.

The precocious court's archetypal determination of the word came successful a lawsuit argued successful October, deflating expectations that the justices would resoluteness the contented of whether Texas' prohibition connected astir abortions could beryllium challenged successful national court.

Two cases connected the Texas contented were argued Nov. 1 nether an accelerated process that the tribunal has antecedently utilized lone seldom and successful immoderate of its astir notable decisions, including the Bush v. Gore lawsuit that settled the 2000 statesmanlike election.

But those cases stay unsettled.

Instead, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the tribunal successful an interstate h2o quality that reaches backmost to 2005.

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The Supreme Court has agelong embraced the conception of a just stock successful authorities fights implicit rivers and streams, a ineligible doctrine known arsenic equitable apportionment.

Mississippi, though, “contends that it has sovereign ownership of each groundwater beneath its surface, truthful equitable apportionment ought not apply. We spot things differently,” Roberts wrote.

Although the h2o root astatine contented successful this lawsuit is h2o from hundreds of feet beneath the surface, Roberts wrote that “we spot nary ground for a antithetic result.”

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