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Water
Buried Treasure: The Memphis Sands Aquifer By Leah Grace Wolf, Contributing Writer from Hutchison School Memphis, Tennessee If you are anything like me, you probably spent your childhood impersonating Captain Jack Sparrow, tearing up your yard in pursuit of gold coins, rubies, and strings of pearls. Alas, I always came away from my epic hunts disgusted at the lack of riches in Tennessee. But while there may not be caches of gold and gems hidden beneath Memphis, Tennessee, there is, without question, a buried treasure - 100 trillion gallons of it, in fact. Entombed under 1,100 feet of sandy soil lies the Memphis Sands Aquifer. The water resting here fell to Earth between three and four thousand years ago, where it had ample time to trickle through layers of thick sediment into deeper aquifers. Given the glacially slow rate at which the water percolates, when it finally flows from the Memphis Sands Aquifer to a faucet, it typically hasn’t seen the light of day for thousands of years. The extensive process, which leads to outrageously pure water, has meant low overhead costs for dozens of water-intensive companies in Memphis, where boreholes draw roughly 200 million gallons of water per day. But lying under eight states (Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, and Kentucky), Memphis is far from the only party that pulls from the aquifer, and because the water is some of the cheapest and purest in the country, companies like Coors, Jack Daniels, and Niagra Bottling benefit from the naturally treated water. Distilleries, pharmaceutical companies, and power plants throughout the eight states are among the many industries that rely on the aquifer. However, the heavy pumping is taking a toll. Hydrogeologists have discovered twenty new “cones of depression” within the last few years -- shaped like an inverted cone, these regions draw the water table down near a borehole from which groundwater is being abstracted by pumping. While they sound harmless, these cones are major sources of friction between states. Over the past fifteen years, numerous inter-state lawsuits have been filed, and recently a fifteen-year-old case reached the US Supreme Court. In Mississippi v. City of Memphis, the state of Mississippi claimed that Memphis is forcibly siphoning its water, and thereby “invaded Mississippi’s sovereign territory.” That’s a new way to think about water. For nearly two hundred years, the US legal system protected water as res communes - a public entity not owned by any individual person, business, or government body. This is a very unique status given to only a few other things: air, sunlight, and outer space. While Tennessee has fought to get the lawsuit tossed out, Mississippi is on a mission for a multi-million dollar payout and a ruling that would force Memphis to pump water from the Mississippi River instead. Surface water disputes between states are not uncommon. Most are settled quickly and satisfactorily in district courts; however, this is the first Supreme Court Case to resolve a dispute over interstate groundwater, resulting in what will be a landmark decision. It has the potential to redefine how states, boroughs, businesses, and individuals interact with regard to the management of water. In a world with increasingly great water scarcity, the repercussions of this ruling will be fundamental in determining our next steps amid the pressing water crisis. Water law varies significantly across states. For example, Texas landowners have the right to withdraw groundwater beneath their property, but that is distinguished from allowing an individual to own the water itself. If the latter were the case, speculators would effectively hold their water until it became more profitable to sell -- when
