In 1993, Joel J. Kyle and his wife, Juanita, moved just over the Georgia border to Tennessee ”” and Joel Kyle vowed never to cross it again.
Now, some Georgia lawmakers want the border to cross him, in a manner of speaking.
A resolution in Georgia’s legislature proposes to move the Tennessee-Georgia boundary about a mile to the north of where it now lies, which could put Kyle right back into the state he left 15 years ago.
The proposal elicited instant ridicule from residents of the area on Thursday, as well as tongue-in-cheek saber rattling from Tennessee lawmakers.
One state senator offered to settle the issue with a football game. Another suggested floating an armada of University of Tennessee fans down the Tennessee River to defend the state’s territory.
As a Tennessean who bears almost alone the honor of our beloved State of Tennessee, and who is temporarily now seconded to the cold and frozen exile in the putative, if not hostile and certainly unfriendly, state of Illinois, I rise to object to the unwarrented and marginable accusations by the great State of Georgia.
Georgians cannot endure the ice and snow as we have done
here, sir. nor do I see many Georgians here to support me in
my poor wintry, -4 degree temperatures in my exile here.
However, upon my return to Tennessee, sir, I am sure that warmth will return if we pray it to so.
Arizona and California had a water war which ran decades. Arizona finally won with a Supreme Court ruling. I suggest to California and to Georgia that they look into desalination. The oceans are large. Messing with those folks up in the Tennessee hills sounds like a really bad idea.
I may be back living in England, but I lived more of my life in Tennessee than any other place — and still own property there! One can but admire the audacity of Georgia wanting to annex our territory and water, but our legislators need to make it perfectly clear that Tennessee is neither for sale nor is it up for grabs.
I’ve got a great idea. Rather than Georgia trying to steal bits of Tennessee so it can get Tennessee’s water, why not sell them the water at the same price that is charged for a bottle of water when it is sold to needy Tennesseans who have to endlessly pass through Hartsfield Airport in Atlanta? I can’t remember what I paid for a small bottle last time I was there, but it was certainly $2.00 or more.
Such a plan could solve Tennessee’s budget challenges and would perhaps balance things up a little bit between the two states….
When I moved to North Carolina from Maryland over 30 years ago I was told that one reason to behave in the South was that those who do so, when they die, go straight to Heaven. All other destinations go through the Atlanta airport. We flew out of Atlanta to Cairo several years ago; when I have to fly I now leave from the Greenville-Spartanburg or Asheville airports.
Many waters cannot quench greed.
Atlanta sucks resources from the entire state.
It’s not that there isn’t enough water. There are just too many people, and they want to keep expanding. If this were happening in a human physical body, it would be called cancer.
Having thought about this issue overnight, I have reached the
conclusion that if the Georgians do not back off from this
insulting proposal, the Tennessee State Legislature should
embargo the exportion of Jack Daniels Whiskey to the state of
Georgia. There is precedent for this going back to a similar
action taken with respect to the great state of North Carolina
in a dispute over odorous emissions from the Canton (NC)
paper plant, just over the state line.
#5, when I moved to North Carolina 28 years ago the way I heard it was that if you want to go to heaven you have to go through Atlanta.
And, #8, conversely, if you want to go to hell you have to
go through O’Hare.
+KJS and Mr. Beers must be part of this land grab. Wait for the litigation to begin!
Florida has been fighting Georgia for water sharing rights for 15 years. It appears that Georgia wants to control ALL of the water in the South-Eastern US.
We moved to Georgia nearly a year ago and I have been trying to get the attention of our lawmakers that switching a large portion of our electricity generation to renewable energy, as 33 other non-water parched states are already doing, would significantly alleviate our water usage on the Chattahoochee. Conventional power generation is the single largest use of water per capita than anything else. But our legislature and Governor would rather focus on fighting other states than getting its own house in order. I have visited my own Congressman Deal’s offices in Washington DC to suggest we move to renewable energy and his aid told me there was no renewable energy potential in Georgia. This patently ridiculous statement falls in the face of research being done by Georgia Tech and the Southern Company on wind, solar and geothermal resources in the state. This statement from a republican who sits on the House energy and commerce committee explains why the current Republican view on energy development in this country is so warped. I am embarrassed for the way our elected leaders in Georgia are behaving.
#12 has a cogent analysis based on experience. This does
make one wonder whether some state governments have the
coordination, foresight, and even ability to plan ahead for major
contingencies. Speaking of the dysfunction of state
governments, I would point to the State of Illinois as
an excellent example of totally uncoordinated state government,
led by a governor who (1) truly isn’t in touch with
the legislature (2) doesn’t care (3) doesn’t bother and
(4) doesn’t lead (5) isn’t respected (6) refuses to
reside in the state capital of Springfield, and
and, most of all, (6) believes that raising taxes is
the perpetual answer to all problems.
The critical water issue in California is between the North and the
South. Practically all California water comes from the north, where there is much mountain snow and several sizeable rivers, especially the
Sacramento. The south, wnich really has no watershed of any significance, is the fastest growing and gets little water from its own area, but instead from the north, the eastern High Sierra. amd from the Colorado R. The North used to be where most of the people were. That has not been true for about 60 years.