Georgia-Tennessee Border Dispute Over Water?, page 1

Georgia-Tennessee Border Dispute Over Water?

tennessean.com

A resolution in Georgia's legislature proposes to move the Tennessee-Georgia boundary about a mile to the north of where it now lies...

Georgia has been battling Florida and Alabama in federal court for about 18 years over water rights. Last summer, Lake Lanier, which supplies Atlanta's water, shriveled to historic lows.

The resolution, which has passed early hurdles but has not received final passage, claims that the boundary was erroneously surveyed in 1818 and that Georgia has never accepted it. The resolution calls for the creation of a "Georgia-Tennessee Boundary Line Commission" that would perform joint surveys....

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The border debate centers on an 1818 survey that has entered the folklore of north Georgia. As the story goes, surveyors charting out the 35th parallel were either frightened by a nearby Indian party or simply used flawed math to draw the line.

The actual resolution can be seen here:

www.legis.ga.gov...

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF GEORGIA that the Governor of Georgia is hereby directed to communicate with the Governors of North Carolina and Tennessee for the purpose of having joint surveys and settlements of the disputed boundary questions.

So this is a curious situation. Atlanta needs water badly, and I suppose they can count their lucky stars that legislation has been previously tried for over 190 years to redraw the borders- but always failed to produce results.

Tennessee just has no interest in giving up any of their land, and the Vols ain't wantin' Atlanta's grubby hands on their Tennessee River. What I am not understanding here is if it's within reach, why not just let Atlanta take a pre-agreed amount each year from the river, as long as Atlanta agrees to not pollute it... Why pursue a border redraw- especially when previous attempts have failed?

This also brings to mind another issue- won't we see all kinds of problems like this when corporate America decides to plunge Mexican or Canadian resources after a NAU erasing of borders or vice versa?

tennessean.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 9-2-2008 by TrueAmerican]