ELR Citation: 51 ELR 20200
No(s). 143, Orig (U.S. Nov 22, 2021)

The U.S. Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit brought by Mississippi against Tennessee seeking damages for a Tennessee city's pumping of groundwater from the Middle Claiborne Aquifer. Mississippi argued that the pumping siphoned water away from Mississippi and amounted to a tortious taking of groundwater it owned. A special master determined that the aquifer was an interstate water resource and that equitable apportionment was the exclusive judicial remedy, and thus recommended that the Court dismiss the complaint but grant Mississippi leave to file an amended complaint. Mississippi challenged the special master's recommendation to dismiss, and Tennessee objected to the recommendation to grant leave to amend. The high court found that because (1) transboundary water resources were at issue, (2) the aquifer contained water that flowed naturally between the states, and (3) actions taken in Tennessee to pump water from the aquifer clearly had effects on the portion of the aquifer underlying Mississippi, the judicial remedy of equitable apportionment applied to the Middle Claiborne Aquifer. It rejected Mississippi's contention that it had a sovereign ownership right to all water beneath its surface that precluded application of equitable apportionment, because such an approach would allow an upstream state to completely cut off flow to a downstream one in contravention of the Court's jurisprudence. The Court adopted the special master's recommendation to dismiss the suit and sustained Tennessee's objection to the recommendation to grant Mississippi leave to amend. Roberts, C.J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.