Could parts of Chattanooga, East Ridge and other cities on the Tenn-Georgia border become, in fact, parts of Georgia? The Georgia legislature has passed bills on both their house and senate to take back Tennessee land that they claim is theirs. All the way back in 1818, a Georgia surveyor laid out the borders on the north side of the state of Georgia. From then until today, this has been known as the border between Tennessee and Georgia. What the Georgia government now claims is that the survey made in 1818 came up a mile short of what it should have been, and they now want that land (which they never had) back.

But what’s really going on is Georgia, specifically Atlanta, is having increasing water supply problems, and the state of Georgia wants to tap into the Tennessee River to supply their most populous city with an abundance of water. So because GA feels is if they were wronged 200 years ago, by their own surveyor, they can just go and take what isn’t theirs. People who live in that proposed 50-square mile land grab would go from being Tennesseans to Georgians, against their will. They will go from paying no income tax to paying Georgia’s income tax. They will go from contributing their tax money to the schools of Tennessee to the inner-city schools of Atlanta. They will go from having Tennessee drivers licenses to GA drivers license, all because the state of Georgia wants to take something they’ve never owned and steal Tennessee’s water. People who work as government officials in these border cities (such as Lookout Mountain, Tenn.) will go from being Tennessee state employees to Georgia state employees.

Hopefully this travesty will be stopped.