In my rankings of which states are the most ridiculous, I always placed Tennessee higher than Georgia. I might have to readjust those rankings and apologize to the Volunteer State.
The city of Atlanta [located in Georgia, in case you were wondering], an industry leader at how to allow uncontrolled sprawl, is running out of water. They've been looking at options for how to prevent this from happening in the future and came to a decision:
Invade Tennessee.
Apparently an erroneous survey completed in 1818 placed the Georgia/Tennessee border one mile south of where it should have been. And since recovering that land would give them access to the water of the Tennessee River, the state legislature of Georgia voted for an official survey study so they can eventually take the land back. And just so you understand their seriousness, both houses passed the resolution unanimously.
Never mind the fact that the original surveyor of the land, one James Camak, a professor at the University of Georgia, was conducting the survey with poor equipment. He'd asked the state's governor for some more sophisticated equipment so he could be as accurate as possible but he was refused. So because Georgia was cheap 200 years ago, Camak's border was off and it has remained until today. Not quite sure I feel too sympathetic for Georgia here.
And it should be noted that moving the border north would bring parts of the city of Chattanooga into Georgia, and parts of the city of Memphis into Mississippi. So it's not like reclaiming this land would only affect a few people. It would, likely, cost hundreds of millions of dollars to sort everything out.Â
So instead of admitting years of mismanagement in permitting massive sprawl, or coming up with practical solutions of how to deal with water crisis, Georgia's solution is to reclaim land they never wanted in the first place?
Nice job, Georgia politicians. Way to increase our faith in politics.
And I'm not quite sure I'd want to invade Tennessee anytime soon, either. They take the second amendment pretty seriously down there.