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DEL.ICIO.USFetch your buckets! Perdue signs up for a border war with Tennessee
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Among the mass of bills signed by Gov. Sonny Perdue on Wednesday was a directive from the Legislature, urging him to pursue negotiations with Tennessee over the 35th parallel.
S.R. 822 originally called for a two-state commission to look into the border dispute, but the Tennessee legislature rejected that approach and the language was dropped.
Instead, the resolution simply directs Perdue to pursue talks with Tennessee — and authorizes the governor to take the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court, if he chooses to do so.
The entire matter is now up to him, though funding for a lawsuit would probably require additional legislative approval. But by signing the measure, Perdue has — in effect — endorsed the border war.
Georgia has long argued that its northern border with Tennessee lies a tad too far to the south — the result of an inaccurate, 19th century survey. As a result, the state claims that it is wrongfully denied access to the Tennessee River, which carries roughly 15 times as much water as the Chattahoochee River that supplies nearly all of Atlanta’s water.
“The resolution directs the Governor to commence direct negotiations and contemplates litigation if those negotiations fail. Georgia has passed at least nine resolutions over the last 190 years objecting to the 1818 survey line and seeking to correct it. It is time that this issue is resolved, once and for all,” said state Sen. David Shafer, sponsor of the resolution.
The Chattanooga Times Free Press has already checked with Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen. No call from Perdue yet.
The governor signed the measure in a private ceremony — the better to avoid pesky questions about a gun bill and line item vetoes of Paulding County construction projects.
Attending were Shafer, state Rep. Harry Geisinger (R-Sandy Springs) and Dade County Commission Chairman Ben Brandon.
Why a Dade County commission chairman? Because if this tactic is successful and Georgia is allowed to slip a straw into the Tennessee River, that’s the county through which the “Shafer pipeline” — the “Shafer-Geisinger pipeline”? the “Shafer-Geisinger-Perdue pipeline”? — would pass.
Photo credit: Associated Press
Comments
By Jimbo
May 15, 2008 1:04 PM | Link to this
I feel the likelihood of Georgia prevailing in a military incursion against Tennessee is a small one. If we did win we’d have to occupy Tennessee for years before they the local populace calmed down. We should wait a few years and employ some of the COIN warfare tactics coming out of Iraq.
By Billy Bob
May 17, 2008 5:48 AM | Link to this
As soon as the invasion of Tennessee begins begins we will need to open the second front on the south. Florida is vulnerable. With north Florida seeking to secede from the rest of the state, a quick invasion by Georgia to seize all lands to the Gulf, including the Apalachicola river, will assure that Georgia has all the water it needs for years to come.
In fact I suspect someone made a surveying error years ago and there is irrefutable evidence that Georgia owns the Florida panhandle.
Annexing N. Florida will assure that all the other lakes in Georgia are virtually drained so that Atlanta can have its private recreational lake for houseboats and water craft at Lake Lanier. After all everyone else in the south is a mere second class citizen- right?
Once north Florida and Tennessee area in the bag, then “Atlanta metro Georgians” the only people that count, can begin the process of sucking the Gulf dry with our desalination plants (boy that will be fun.) And we can keep growing and growing and growing Atlanta so big, so we can have more traffic and more problems. This is a great plan!!!