Posted on 02/23/2008 7:56:30 AM PST by Tennessee Nana
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.”
Those Georgians are a'fixin' ta steal Tennessean water...
It's a'feudin' time
:)
Well...ya’lls state line is a full cotton-pickin mile too far south.
That’s our water dagnabbit!
Understatement of the year...
I hate to have to be the one to tell the Tennessee legislature, but they have no authority over the parts of the watershed lying in other states. And the Tennessee River drains parts of 7 or 8 states.
That lil ol’ bit of I-24 only runs through GA so es we-uns kin git cheap gas at Exit 169
LOL
Possession is 9/10 the law so if they want to poke a hole into a cave you so conveniently filled with water without their permission then I think they should go for it.
WOW
tough neighbors
:)
Yer wrong....
That swath’s just thar so it’s easier for we-uns to cross over and git sum farwerks. :)
If they did New Orleans or Pass Christian would have 100% of the water rights involved all the way back to the source.
Eastern law is more complicated, follows a totally different convoluted logic, and all that's going to happen here is that Georgia is going to drill some wells.
Notice, how the article focuses on Atlanta.
Nevermind the rest of the state is in severe drought conditions, or the agriculture of the Southern part of the state depends heavily on water...
Oh yeah, we must save Atlanta! I am a Georgian, proud Georgian, but I don’t claim Atlanta.
I thought that was why God made Indiana.
Hand me down my shootin’ iron. There’s a gonna be trouble.
Wonder how many endangered species were killed when TVA flooded those caves?
It’s good to see Chelsea mentioned in a good way, and not for public intoxication, snubbing nine-year-old kids, or campaigning for crooked politicians.
Right...and much of Tennessee (including Nashville and Memphis) is outside of the Tennessee River valley.
I wonder what would happen now if a TVA or Hoover Dam size project were proposed to benefit a huge amount of people at the stake of losing some special cricket or rare crawdad?
I guess I can answer that question myself....
Snail Darter
My point exactly.
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