Editorial: Share the water across the South

 NEGOTIATE, DON’T litigate.

 That’s the best advice we can offer officials in Mississippi, Alabama and other Southern states that have been embroiled in long, costly courtroom “water wars.”

 Millions of dollars in legal fees have flowed into the decades-long struggle that pits Georgia against Alabama and Florida. In recent years, time and money have been invested in the fight between Mississippi and the city of Memphis over water in an aquifer that straddles the Mississippi-Tennessee-Arkansas state lines.

 Memphis won a significant victory Monday when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Mississippi’s lawsuit against the city. That case, which involves a claim that Memphis is taking water that belongs to northwest Mississippi, has been simmering for nearly five years.

 In the wake of Monday’s Supreme Court decision, Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood said he intended to talk to the attorneys general in Tennessee and Arkansas and try to “reach some settlement.”

 We wish him well in that worthy effort. The Southern states must learn to share their increasingly scarce water resources.

 Rapid growth in metropolitan areas is putting more and more pressure on water supplies, with the result that seven Southern states now are fighting over water in the courts.

 Maybe Mississippi, Tennessee and Arkansas will set an example for other states by reaching a fair and balanced water-sharing agreement.