Georgia-Tennessee border dispute continues
February 22, 2008 at 1:06 pm by Thomas Wheatley in News
I may have been a bit harsh Wednesday when I wrote about the General Assembly passing a resolution that called for a commission to investigate whether Georgia was robbed, thanks to the surveying foul-up of a UGA mathematician in 1818, of a claim to the Tennessee River. (Save me your “should’ve used a techie” jokes — this blog is not affiliated with any institute of higher education.)
In fact, yesterday on the Senate floor, after I handed my Creative Loafing card to state Sen. David Shafer, R-Duluth, one of the authors of the border-dispute bills, he said, “Yeah, one of your bloggers was having some fun with my resolution.” He called the post a “nasty-gram,” which I love.
“That was probably him,” said Greg Bluestein, a damn fine chap from the Associated Press who was standing nearby, referring to yours truly.
“Yep, that was me!” I said. “How are ya?”
Sen. Shafer took it in stride and then took me aside. Contrary to my scribblings, Shafer said he didn’t view accessing the Tennessee River as a short-term solution to our water woes. The state population is expected to double, he said, and such long-term solutions as reservoirs, expanding existing reservoirs, as well as logical conservation measures, are needed. But to ensure Georgia has enough water to provide for its needs, the state has two options, he said: Invest in desalinization plants along the coast — that’s a whole ‘nother risky issue, senator — or dip into the Tennessee River to the north. “Not only do we have a historical claim to the Tennessee River, but an ecological claim as well,” Shafer said — creeks and streams that feed into the rich river originate in Georgia. The dispute is a long-running one and deals with the 35th parallel, a line that runs along Tennessee’s southern border. Mississippi and Tennessee resolved a similar dispute in the 1990s rather peacefully — but that didn’t involve water. That’s another interesting angle we’ll explore.
The Tennessee Legislature thinks this is a joke — and a pretty unfunny one at that. And the Atlanta Business Chronicle is reporting that there’s already a pipeline plan in the works. This makes for fun reading, but it’s a serious topic. There’ll be much more on this in the days and weeks to come. We’ll be on it.
(Photo courtesy of Stock Exchange)
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