NASHVILLE – Top state House leaders Tuesday pulled the plug on a resolution that urged Gov. Bill Haslam not to participate in Georgia’s renewed attempts to revisit a two-century-old state boundary dispute in the Peach State’s quest to gain Tennessee River for a thirsty Atlanta.
The resolution, sponsored by Rep. Marc Gravitt, R-East Ridge, died for lack of a motion in the House Delayed Bills Committee. The panel is compromised of Speaker Beth Harwell, R-Nashville, Majority Leader Glen Casada, R-Franklin, and Minority Leader Craig Fitzhugh, D-Ripley.
Earlier, Gravitt pleaded with the trio to let House Joint Resolution 1004 go to the appropriate committees.
“Folks, this could impact me. I would suddenly become a resident of the state of Georgia,” Gravitt said. “This impacts 55,000 citizens in my district. So that’s the reason, I brought this. As you can see it has bipartisan support.”
It drew no discussion, let alone a motion to approve. Harwell quickly announced the measure was dead.
A two-century old historical curiosity over an 1818 botched Tennessee-Georgia border survey has taken on new urgency for Georgia as the ever-growing metro Atlanta area has faced water shortages. Surveyors erroneously set the line between the states about a mile south of where it should be. Georgia argues it should follow the 35th parallel, saying that’s where Congress intended it to be when Tennessee was admitted as a state in 1796.
Previous efforts by Georgia to revisit the issue have been met with jeers and derision by Tennessee lawmakers. Two years ago after Georgia lawmakers approved yet another effort, then-Tennessee House Majority Leader Gerald McCormick, R-Chattanooga, tweeted that Georgia lawmakers were “idiots.”
Last month, Georgia’s General Assembly approved a resolution to form a delegation to negotiate the “true border” with Tennessee. Georgia lawmakers once again threatened to take the issue before the U.S. Supreme Court.
The dispute area involves 51-mile stretch, which the Atlanta Journal Constitution recently reported as covering about 30,000 Tennessee residents. Both the cities of East Ridge and Chattanooga sit on the order.
“I just want to threaten them and then stick a straw into the Tennessee River,” state Senate President Pro Tempore Butch Miller, R-Gainesville, said last month during a hearing, the Journal-Constitution reported.
As always, Georgia’s real goal is gaining access to the Tennessee River with proponents eyeing a portion of Nickajack Lake in Marion County.
“I just want to threaten them and then stick a straw into the Tennessee River,” state Senate President Pro Tempore Butch Miller, R-Gainesville, said during a hearing this month.
Gravitt’s resolution’s “whereas” introductory clauses note that the Tennessee General Assembly “realizes that the Tennessee-Georgia boundary has been well established for nearly 200 years, and that there is no valid reason for Tennessee to revisit this issue; and WHEREAS, all pertinent legal precedent favors the State of Tennessee; the long-held legal principle states that the decisive factor is not where surveyors intended to draw the boundary, but is instead where people have accepted the boundary to be over time and adjusted their lives accordingly.”
It notes “this legal principle completely negates the proposal to redraw the Tennessee-Georgia boundary, as the altered boundary would place parts of Chattanooga, East Ridge, St. Elmo, and Lookout Mountain in Georgia, creating an untenable situation for these Tennesseans, their local governments, and the State of Tennessee as a whole.”
And the resolution says it’s the Tennessee General Assembly’s “duty to protect the borders and waters of our State for present and future generations of Tennesseans.”
In the resolving clause, it says “we urge and encourage the Governor to refuse to participate in any survey or settlement seeking to alter the Tennessee-Georgia boundary and the Boundary Line Commission proposed by the Georgia General Assembly, or any similar commission established for such purpose.
“BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that it is the sense of this General Assembly that the Tennessee-Georgia boundary has been legally established,” the resolution says.
Georgia has been engaged in a decades-long tri-state water war with Alabama and Florida as Lake Lanier, the primary source of water for the Atlanta region, has faced increased pressure.
Contact staff writer Andy Sher at asher@timesfreepress.com or 615-255-0550. Follow on Twitter @AndySher1.