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[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

> Of course, we have been under restriction against  watering lawns, washing 
> cars and filling pools for nearly a year now, so this  does not really 
> apply.
> 

I'd say it does in that you have never turned on your tap and had no water.



>  I  should also add 
> that while the Tenn. issue is getting lots of media time, this  really 
> became an 
> issue when Alabama and Fla. sued to keep Atlanta from drawing  more water 
> from 
> Lake Lanier.

Georgia should have siezed lake Lanier by force in need be.  Draining that 
lake to keep up navigable water levels down stream was nothing short of 
idiotic. 
 Tennessee will hold its borders by any means necessary so the message to 
Georgia is 'find a real solution to your problem and quit fantasizing'.

South Holston Lake near here is the water souce for four major 
municipalities.  We had the drought as bad if not worse than you Georgia 
folk.  The lake 
level (and unlike Lanier, this is a DEEP lake, 300 feet and more in places) 
went 
down to within 15 inches of the water intakes.  And yet, water was routinely 
released to keep the Tennessee navigable.  South Holston is a hydro-electric 
facility but water is used for generation only when it is needed for 
navigation 
downstream.

People began to get testy.   The lake was lower than it had been 20 years ago 
when it was nearly drained to make repairs to the dam.  

What I mean is that the coveted water that flows so temptingly near Georgia 
is only there because of its controlled release from a score of dams 
upstream.  
Even if Georgia moved the border, it would have no more say over the water 
there than it now does over Lake Lanier.  If Georgia doesn't have the cojones 
to 
sieze one little Corps of Engineers facility, how does it think it its going 
to take water from the State of Tennessee?  If the drought worsens and it 
comes to short tempers and fisticuffs, the municipalities upstream here are 
not 
going to allow the release of water from the lakes and there won't be enough 
water in the river that far downstream to fight over.



 This man made resevoir was built to store  water for Atlanta. 

> The point to building a resevoir is to stockpile for times of  need, so now 
> we 
> can't touch it? Outlet streams and rivers carry the water down  to these 
> other 
> states, neither state is suffering the drought level in areas  they feed 
> that 
> Georgia is feeling. That loss in the courts immediately turned a  shortage 
> into a crises. 

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