Georgia to Invade Tennessee! Can the Volunteers Get it Up!

http://www.newsmax.com/us/drought_state_line/2008/02/08/71294.html

Georgians Thirsting to Moving State Line

Friday, February 8, 2008

COLE CITY HOLLOW, Tenn. -- Nearly two centuries after a flawed survey placed

Georgia's northern line just short of the Tennessee River, some legislators

are suddenly thirsting to set the record straight.

A historic drought has added urgency to Georgia's generations-old claim that

its territory ought to extend about a mile farther north than it does and

reach into the Tennessee _ a river with about 15 times greater flow than the

one Atlanta depends on for its water.

"It's never too late to right a wrong," said Georgia state Sen. David

Shafer, whose bill would create a boundary line commission" that aims to

resolve the dispute.

Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen's reaction: "This is a joke, right?"

In Cole City Hollow, an obscure border community where some northwest

Georgia residents rely on Tennessee roads, the river is so close to crossing

the state line it almost juts into the yard of a Georgia house.

If Tennessee's southern border were the 35th parallel _ as Congress

designated in 1796 _ Georgia would have a share of the Tennessee River. But

a surveying team sent by Georgia to chart the line in 1818 was a bit off the

mark.

Historians say mathematician James Camak, who led the team, begged the state

to provide him the latest equipment, but instead he had to rely on an

English sextant _ an instrument more familiar to sea captains than land

surveyors. Other stories say Camak's team was scared away by an American

Indian party.

Surveyors now know that the Georgia-Tennessee border was placed about 1.1

miles south of where it should be. But that, surveyor Bart Crattle said, is

history.

"Just because you have more accurate equipment, you can't start moving

border lines," said Crattle, a Georgian who works in Chattanooga and is

licensed to survey in both states. "Can you imagine what would happen to our

boundary lines? They'd be all willy-nilly.

"It's correct _ no matter how wrong it is."

Here are just two side effects of making the 35th parallel Tennessee's

southern line: Not only would Georgia get a chunk of Chattanooga,

Mississippi would get a slice of Memphis.

The border has been in place for generations, though there's some dispute

over whether Georgia ever formally agreed to it. In any case, Georgia

partisans say they want what's rightly theirs.

"A state boundary can only be changed by the legislatures of the states,

with the consent of Congress," said Shafer, a Republican from Duluth. "It

cannot be changed by a mathematician with a faulty compass or a skittish

surveying party afraid of the Indians."

The drought has whetted Georgia's thirst for the river, but this is far from

the first attempt to redo Camak's math. Shafer's resolution traces efforts

as far back as 1887, when North Carolina _ another state affected by the

line _ authorized its governor to appoint commissioners and a surveyor to

meet with neighboring delegations over the boundary. No record of such a

meeting exists, it said.

The river winds closest to Georgia near the Camak Stone, a slab placed by

surveyors to mark the corner where Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee meet.

Georgians here drive on Tennessee roads to get to their homes, and few

locals on either side of the line are happy with the idea of moving it.

"All they want to do is get them some water, and I'm against it," said

70-year-old Freddy McCulley, who lives on the Tennessee side. "They ought to

control their growth in Atlanta. This has nothing to do with the people.

It's the politicians."

He was standing at the Camak Stone, which resembled a picnic site Thursday

as several neighbors gathered to vent about the Georgia proposal.

"That would be ridiculous. I'd have to move my phone line and everything,"

said Joe Dugger, a 63-year-old Tennessean. "This is a forgotten part of

Georgia, and they have nothing to do out here except pave the roads every

once in a while."

Jerry Body interrupted him.

"They don't have hardly anything _ they don't even have dog catchers,"

quipped Body, a 66-year-old Georgia resident whose mailing address is in

Tennessee.

Some influential Georgia politicians have suggested using old-fashioned

horse trading to broker a water deal, saying Georgia should offer a

high-speed rail line from Atlanta to Chattanooga in exchange for rights to

the river. But Tennessee's governor said he was unaware of the Georgia

legislation until he was told of it by The Associated Press earlier this

week.

Bredesen, a Democrat, said he doesn't believe the resolution is a step

toward a more heated battle over water rights in the region.

"I would say it represents the ratcheting up of a PR war, and nothing else,"

he said.

Just in case, he added, "We will protect our borders here in Tennessee."