Chattanooga Sending Truck Load Of Water To Atlanta

The city of Chattanooga, facing a possible Georgia land grab as part of an effort to get access to the Tennessee River, is sending a truck load of bottled water to Atlanta.

Mayor Ron Littlefield said the water will be delivered on Wednesday by his aide Matt Lea wearing a coonskin cap.

The mayor has officially proclaimed Feb. 27, 2008, as “Give our Georgia Friends a Drink Day.” The proclamation comes as a result of the Georgia Legislature passing a joint resolution that seeks to pursue reestablishing the boundary between Georgia and Tennessee.

The truck load of bottled water along with the proclamation will be delivered to the Georgia Legislature Wednesday morning.

“Please know that we are willing to help our neighbors to the south with this complimentary truck load of water,” said Mayor Littlefield. “And along with this water, we want to send Georgia legislators a message that focusing on conservation efforts would be much more productive than an ill-conceived land and water grab.”

The water is being donated by the Chattanooga Choo Choo and others. The truck is on loan from a local automobile dealership.

If you would like to donate water to be included, please drop off sealed bottles of water to City Hall, 1st floor, 101 East 11th Street, Chattanooga, until 4:30 p.m. today.

Mayor Littlefield said on Talk Radio on Tuesday that building a pipeline from the Tennessee River to Atlanta would be cost prohibitive.

He said it is uphill to Atlanta and the pipeline project would be the largest public works project ever in the Southeast.

WHEREAS, it has come to pass that the heavens are shut up and a drought of Biblical proportions has been visited upon the Southern United States, and

WHEREAS, the parched and dry conditions have weighed heavily upon the State of Georgia and sorely afflicted those who inhabit the Great City of Atlanta, and

WHEREAS, the leaders of Georgia have assembled like the Children of Israel in the desert, grumbled among themselves and have begun to cast longing eyes toward the north, coveting their neighbor’s assets, and

WHEREAS, the lack of water has led some misguided souls to seek more potent refreshment or for other reasons has resulted in irrational and outrageous actions seeking to move a long established and peaceful boundary, and

WHEREAS, it is deemed better to light a candle than curse the darkness, and better to offer a cool, wet kiss of friendship rather than face a hot and angry legislator gone mad from thirst, and

Whereas, it is feared that if today they come for our river, tomorrow they might come for our Jack Daniels or George Dickel,

NOW THEREFORE, In the interest of brotherly love, peace, friendship, mutual prosperity, citywide self promotion, political grandstanding and all that

Georgia ought to just build an underground pipe and suck the river dry
Draiiiiiiinage!!!!!
_____________________________________________

That was considered...

Atlanta may only need ‘big straw

Years ago a Georgia planner joked, half seriously, that the Peach State should just “stick a straw” in the Tennessee River to bring water to thirsty Atlanta.

The analogy may turn out to be easier than anyone thought.

Regional cavers are suggesting on their blogs that Georgia take advantage of Tennessee River water backed up years ago by TVA dams into Nickajack Cave and some connected caverns. They say water captured from the Tennessee River flows underground into Georgia and Alabama. If engineers could drill in, then courts might have to decide if the water is groundwater or impounded Tennessee River water.

Tennessee’s Department of Environment and Conservation officials acknowledge the cave drilling idea is a possibility.

There may be a river water connection to cave streams in Georgia, said Tisha Calabrese-Benton, spokeswoman for the department.

“Do we know whether there is a specific place in Georgia where someone could drill and hit an underground lake that existed in some capacity before Nickajack was flooded and is now charged with Tennessee River water? No. But the department believes that moving Tennessee River water out of the Tennessee River watershed would require permission from both TVA and the Army Corps of Engineers,” she said.

Ms. Calabrese-Benton said Tennessee officials believe TVA and the corps would “be protective of the resource in all states.”

TVA spokesman Gil Francis said such a plan almost certainly would involve environmental impact studies, federal reviews known for lengthy delays.

Nickajack Cave is a protected area as the habitat of an endangered species of bat, he said. And even if Georgia could drill to water in a connected underground cave near Nickajack, experts would have to show where the water came from. Even in groundwater, should dye tests or other means show it is Tennessee River water or a river source water, an environmental impact study would have to be conducted to show the impact on the river, he said.

“What they (Georgians) are asking us to do is divert water that goes to Huntsville and many other cities and instead send it to Atlanta,” Mr. Francis said. “We’ve heard a lot of discussion about moving the border, but even if you did, it doesn’t change the watershed. If you transfer water from that watershed, it will affect reservoir elevations and TVA’s abilities to do what it does. And you’re still talking about interbasin transfer.”

In 2000, Tennessee lawmakers passed the Interbasin Water Transfer Act requiring the state to issue permits to any entity moving water out of the Tennessee River watershed, which is the 40,000-square-mile area where rainfall naturally flows ultimately to the river.

Dodd Galbreath, who as a policy planner in the administration of former Gov. Don Sundquist helped push through Tennessee’s interbasin water transfer permitting law, said officials then wrote the law with specific language to account for “conjunctive” relationships or connections between surface and groundwater.

“Any removal of groundwater that results in a reduction of flow in the Tennessee River counts,” Mr. Galbreath said Friday. “We were very careful to regulate the ‘effect’, not just the action.”

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