Rep. Harry Geisinger, R-Roswell, is again trying to divert water from the Tennessee River to metro Atlanta.
“That will solve our water problems for the next 100 years,” Geisinger told this InsiderAdvantage writer. The legislation could help resolve a border dispute with Tennessee dating back nearly 200 years, as well as a conflict with Florida and Alabama, which claim metro Atlanta takes too much water from the Chattahoochee River.
Geisinger’s HB 4 would change state law prohibiting the North Georgia Water Planning District from taking water from rivers outside of the district. The bill would allow interbasin transfers “from a river with an annual average flow of at least 15 billion gallons.” Geisinger said that the Tennessee River has a water flow of 24 billion gallons at Nickajack Lake, 15 times more than the Chattahoochee’s flow at Buford Dam. Attorney Brad Carver of Atlanta, who’s gained national attention for efforts to get Tennessee to give Georgia land to settle a border-drawing mistake by surveyors in 1818, said a pipeline would transport enough water to more than double Atlanta’s daily needs.
Carver, senior managing director of government affairs for Hall Booth Smith, has pushed efforts to move Georgia’s border north to the 35th parallel, which goes through the middle of Nickajack Lake.
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