Georgia Senate: We're Annexing Slice of Tennessee

State says boundary blunder denies it access to key source of water
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 26, 2013 4:20 AM CDT
Updated Mar 26, 2013 5:23 AM CDT
Georgia Senate Votes to Annex Slice of Tennessee
A marker in Cole City Hollow Tenn. marks the state lines of Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee.   (AP Photo/John Bazemore)

Georgia's Senate has voted 48-2 to shift the state's northern border to include a sliver of land it says was wrongly given to Tennessee by a surveyor's blunder in 1818. Georgia says the "mismarked boundary lines" have denied it access to the Tennessee River as a source of water and it says it will take its northern neighbor to court if it doesn't agree to surrender a slice of land big enough to allow it to do so, reports the Chattanooga Times Free Press.

Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal would have to sign off on any border change, as would Tennessee and the US Congress, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution adds. "It is not something that would negatively impact the water supply of Tennessee," Deal says. The border dispute isn't likely to spark war between Georgia and Tennessee—but Alabama sits just downstream from the disputed area and, since it has suffered from drought as much as northern Georgia in recent years, it is unlikely to give up its water without some kind of fight, the Atlantic notes. (More Georgia stories.)

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