In our ongoing Southern drought coverage, you may recall us mentioning what at the time seemed like nothing more than a historical curiosity regarding the Tennessee border. It seems the team sent out in 1818 to survey the border missed the 35th parallel by about a mile because of substandard equipment and charts, putting a southern portion the Tennessee River that would have been in Georgia entirely in Tennessee.

Now, a genuine border dispute has erupted. Yesterday, the Georgia state legislature passed a resolution establishing a boundary commission to resurvey the border and move it one mile north so Georgia, which is running out of water in the Atlanta area, could tap the Tennessee River.

The bill was introduced in the Senate to the refrain of Senators singing "This land is my land, this land is your land," where it passed unanimously. The sponsor of the House bill said Georgia is prepared to go to court if Tennessee doesn't comply.

If the measure fails in court, Georgia could resort to drilling into the Tennessee River aquifer near the Georgia-Tennessee border. According to the Atlanta Business Chronicle, customers for Tennessee River water are already being lined up in the metro Atlanta area.

State officials in Tennessee are not amused.

From the Chattanooga Times Free Press

"I think they're embarrassing themselves, and I think it’s a waste of taxpayers’ money to have them going into session and doing such silly things on taxpayers’ time," said Rep. Gerald McCormick, R-Chattanooga, chairman of the Hamilton County legislative delegation.

He called "idiotic" and "crazy," the proposal that seeks to take a mile-wide strip of southern Tennessee, including a chunks of Chattanooga and East Ridge.

"I don't think we'll do anything but ignore them and laugh at them," Rep. McCormick said about a Tennessee response.

He is also quoted by WSMV Nashville:

Tennessee Rep. Gerald McCormick, a Chattanooga Republican, called the resolution "silliest thing I've ever seen any group of Republicans do."

"I'm embarrassed that they would embarrass the party like that," he said. "They're idiots."

The Associated Press quotes a spokesperson for Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen:

But trying to change the state lines now is "an absurd approach," said Will Pinkston, a senior adviser to Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen.

"It's unfortunate that Georgia didn't plan accordingly for growth over the past couple of decades, and now is trying to rewrite 200 years of history to address their mistakes," Pinkston said.

"Under no circumstances will Gov. Bredesen turn over Tennessee's water to Georgia," he said.

Tennessee State Senator Andy Berke is quoted as saying "Georgia needs to be looking at responsible solutions for how to deal with water and land-use planning, rather than irresponsible land grabs." The article notes that parts of Memphis, Tennessee's largest city, would also suddenly be in Mississippi, giving thousands of residents new addresses.

In a spirit of cooperation, however, Tennessee officials offered a couple of weeks ago to settle the matter by way of alternative dispute resolution, suggesting "a winner-take-all wrestling match or football game."

UPDATE: WPLN: Tennessee Legislature To Defend Border With Its Own Resolution

"The principle of adverse possession applies to these boundary disputes between states, not just private parties. In even starker laymans’ terms, if you fenced it, and thought it was yours, it doesn’t matter what the deed says, or what the act says, It’s yours."

Fincher said the issue of water rights – as opposed to the boundary lines – is different in the east than it is in the water-parched west.

"Since we’re east of the Mississippi, basic water rights are the classic English water rights, the riparian water rights, and what that means is, if you live next to the stream you can use it."

This might actually get interesting.

UPDATE: The New York Times takes notice:

WHEREAS, Georgia lawmakers on Wednesday passed a resolution to restore the boundary line to its appropriate latitude, notwithstanding skepticism all around and outright insults from their neighbors to the north.

And WHEREAS the concept of a war between states is not foreign to these parts,

BE IT OBSERVED that the Georgia legislature appears to be serious.

Labels: drought, environment, water rights

Most of Alabama and Georgia, the Tennessee Valley, and now North Carolina are experiencing "exceptional" drought conditions in the record-breaking drought that has plagued the South throughout the second half of 2007.

Rainfall in Alabama is more than 30 inches below normal for the year. Here in East Tennessee, we are about 18 inches below normal. (Although we are getting some welcome relief from a severe storm system blowing through as I type this.)

According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, "Many locations in the Southeast are on pace to have the all-time driest year on record, with many stations having histories back to the 1880 time period." Also, "Of the 628 water systems being tracked, 173 have mandatory water conservation measures in place, while 162 have voluntary restrictions in place." You can read their full report and review the latest map here.

More "water wars" controversy erupted earlier this week, when the chairman of the Atlanta Regional Commission suggested running a pipeline from the Tennessee River to Atlanta, where water supplies are running dangerously low. According to the Huntsville Times, there was even talk of a deal involving cooperation on a light rail line between Chattanooga and Atlanta in exchange for a water pipeline.

TVA says there are no such plans in the works, but even if there were it would violate all kinds of current federal regulations. TVA is expected to review their water transfer policy sometime in 2008, but it is unlikely they will get in the middle of the ongoing Alabama/Georgia/Florida water war. The Decatur Daily has more on the controversy.

Ironically, the Tennessee River would flow through a corner of Georgia if not for a stingy governor who, in 1818, provided only "a sextant 'of English construction' and astronomical tables that 'were not such as I could have wished them to be'" instead of proper surveying tools for teams sent to survey the border between Tennessee and Georgia. It was supposed to be at the 35th Parallel, but they missed by about a mile. You can read the fascinating story here.

Labels: climate, drought

Following up on our previous report about drought conditions around the South and particularly the Atlanta area which now has only an estimated 80 day supply of water left, Florida has backed out of an agreement that would have let Georgia reduce discharges from Lake Lanier to increase Georgia's water supply.

The agreement, brokered between Georgia, Florida, and Alabama by Bush administration officials at a recent White House meeting, would have instructed the Corps of Engineers to reduce the flow going to Florida by 2.7 billion gallons per day, or 16% according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

The article quotes the head of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection as saying that reducing the Chattahoochee River flow would "cause irreparable harm to Gulf sturgeon and federally protected mussel populations" and "would not only precipitate a catastrophic collapse of the oyster industry in Apalachicola Bay but also displace the entire economy of the Bay region."

The article also says the agreement was pending a Fish and Wildlife Services assessment of possible impact to marine life downstream. Florida did not wait for their report, which was due Thursday, before nixing the deal.

In a Reuters article, the Southern Environmental Law Center says framing the argument as "man v. mussels" is, well, a red herring:

The drought plaguing parts of at least seven U.S. states in the Southeast has to do with exploding demand in some of the fastest growing areas of the United States, breakneck urban development that has paved over acres of natural wetlands, and poor planning by local authorities.

"It's very misleading when the debate is framed as people versus mussels," said Gil Rogers, a staff attorney in Atlanta for the Southern Environmental Law Center.

What politicians in the Southeast need to do is to look at the way "we're growing and whether there is water to maintain the lifestyle we all want," Rogers said. "Our political leadership has blinkers on when it comes to anything that might get in the way of unrestricted development."

In related news, presidential candidates are reluctant to wade in to the water wars, for fear that pitting one region's interests against another's might poison the well.

The Associated Press asked the leading candidates to weigh in. The Giuliani, Thompson, and Edwards campaigns did not respond.

Clinton said she would oppose tapping the Great Lakes, and "would not overrule a state's lawful right to protect its water supplies." McCain would also protect the Great Lakes, and would focus on conservation and new storage projects. Romney said a recent Western water sharing agreement was a good example for other regions. Obama said the federal government should be a "fair dealer" and should create a national water use and conservation plan.

Richardson stepped on a land mine when he previously suggest that Wisconsin was "awash in water." He later backtracked saying he did not mean to imply that Great Lakes water should be pumped to other states, and that states should be "swapping ideas, not their water."

The AP article says:

Yet sidestepping the problem is a luxury that presidential candidates won't have forever, Duke University political scientist David Rohde said. Population is surging in the arid West, where water shortages are chronic, and in the Southeast, where the drought has prompted spats between neighboring states.

The government projects that at least 36 states will face water shortages within five years because of rising temperatures and evaporation rates, lack of rain, urban sprawl, waste and overuse.

Meanwhile, we're still praying for rain down here in the parched South. Literally.

Labels: climate, drought, environment, natural resources

(U.S. Drought Monitor, Oct. 30, 2007)

The long, record-breaking drought continues across the South, and is reaching a crisis point in many communities.

Where I live in Blount Co. Tennessee, we get our water from Little River, which starts out as a pristine mountain stream flowing out of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It has dried up to a trickle, leaving local government officials scrambling for solutions.

We've had off-and-on mandatory water use restrictions for a couple of months now that prohibit washing cars and watering lawns and gardens. There are restrictions on commercial use such as car washes and nurseries watering their stock, and mandatory cutbacks and conservation measures at factories and hospitals. People are catching gray water from dishwashing and baths to water their plants and gardens. Even the trout fishing outfitters say stay away and go fish somewhere else -- what's left of the river and the fish are too stressed.

The City of Alcoa just completed an emergency project to run a 24-inch iron pipe several miles from where Little River flows into the Fort Loudon Dam impoundment back upstream to their water processing plant intake on the river. The City of Maryville has been buying water from a rural utility district that gets water from the Tellico Reservoir, and is now also buying water from Alcoa. The Maryville water treatment plant is upstream from Alcoa's, and they are trying to get regulatory relief that will let them take more water out leaving less for Alcoa, prompting talk of "water wars".

And that's just what's happening in my little community.

The small town of Orme, Tennessee has literally run out of water. What little they are able to get is being rationed, and residents are allowed only three hours of running water per day. The town mayor himself turns the valve on at pre-announced times. The volunteer fire chief takes the town's fire truck to a fire hydrant in a nearby Alabama town and brings back water 20,000 gallons at a time. They're working on a deal to hook up to the Alabama town's system and buy water from them.

Elsewhere in the state, this Tennessee Emergency Management Agency critical situation summary reports:

Monteagle UD ... lake sources may be exhausted in December if the area does not get a substantial amount of rain.

TVA Normandy Reservoir Coffee County (Duck River) ... discharge on November 2 is 111 cfs and the lake elevation is 856.3. feet The lowest level recorded since impoundment is 853. Duck River UD would have to cease pumping water to 50,000 customers at 835 elevation.

Pikeville water system ... serious supply and distribution problems... Thirty to forty percent of the distribution system was without water including the schools [for two days due to a water main break at a nearby town providing them emergency water].

The report lists more than twenty public utility systems under mandatory water use restrictions across the state.

As bad as it is in Tennessee, it's worse on a much bigger scale in Georgia. You may have heard that Atlanta is on the verge of running out of water. It is estimated that they may have less than a 90 day supply left in Lake Lanier, which supplies water to more than three million Atlanta area residents.

Gov. Sonny Perdue has declared a state of emergency, and is asking the federal government to order the Corps of Engineers to curtail water releases from Georgia's reservoirs to keep the lake levels up. This has heated up ongoing disputes with Florida and Alabama, which rely on flow from the Apalachicola, Chattahoochee and Flint rivers for their water.

Last week, University of Georgia officials asked 93,000 football fans attending UGA's homecoming game not to flush. When it starts affecting SEC football, you know it's serious.

(There is, however, a tiny silver lining in the clouds that are not forming over Georgia. It seems that dry weather is good for Georgia's pecan crop, which is expected to be top in the nation at 125 million pounds.)

It's like we're talking about a third-world country here. Nothing like this has happened in 100 years, and state and local governments in the Southeast aren't prepared to deal with it on their own.

Incredibly, President Bush's response to the crisis was to veto the Water Resources Development Act of 2007, saying the bill "lacks fiscal discipline," and "makes promises to communities that Congress does not have a track record of keeping."

This prompted Tennessee's Republican Senators Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker to issue a joint press release criticizing Bush's veto:

"I'm disappointed the President vetoed the Water Resources Development Act which is critical to Tennessee's water infrastructure -- from keeping Wolf Creek Dam safe to providing clean drinking water in small towns like Blaine, Tennessee. In fact, this bill would help repair our aging dams and levees allowing us to safely store more water and reduce the negative impacts of droughts like the record-setting drought our state faces today."

The bill, which also included $7 billion for Gulf Coast reconstruction projects, passed in the House 381 to 40 and in the Senate by 81 to 12. Congress is expected to override Bush's veto.

UPDATE: The House voted to override Bush's veto 361-54. The Senate is expected to vote this week.

(Thanks to Andy Axel and Eleanor A at TennViews for the assist.)

Labels: climate, drought, infrastructure