Georgia Attorney Lawyer

Tennessee legislators re-pelled “Georgia’s heinous assault” on their state’s sovereignty this month when the House voted unanimously to oppose Georgia’s attempt to adjust the border between the states.

Unfazed, Georgia officials vowed to take Tennessee to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary to remedy the 190-year-old border dispute and, in the process, gain access to the bountiful Tennessee River to slake North Georgia’s drought.

Georgia, though, could launch another legal attack. Federal land — not controlled by Tennessee — lies between Georgia and the river. The Tennessee Valley Authority, a federal agency that manages the river, owns the half-mile slice of largely untrammeled property separating Dade County, Ga., from the river.

TVA policy allows adjacent landowners to cross its property to reach the Tennessee River. Georgia, conceivably, could bypass a spat with the state by dealing directly with the federal government.

“We have a strong argument to the entire disputed area, but we have a stronger argument — the strongest — for the areas that are federal land,” said Atlanta attorney Brad Carver, who has been advising Georgia legislators on possible legal tactics. “The state is going to have a lot of different strategies to look at.”

Precedents on each side

There’s little dispute that the border is wrong. Congress created the state of Tennessee in 1796, establishing its border with Georgia at the 35th parallel.

In 1818, a mathematician marked the boundary. Eight years later, James Camak admitted his error. Today, 51 square miles — Chattanooga suburbs, a portion of Lookout Mountain, national forests, TVA land and a bend of the river — fall within the disputed territory.

The 35th parallel lies 1.1 miles north of the current border. Georgia legislators want Tennessee to accept the original border so North Georgia could readily access hundreds of millions of gallons of Tennessee River water daily.

“I am more concerned about securing riparian [water] rights to the Tennessee River than obtaining the entire disputed area,” said Sen. David Shafer (R-Duluth), whose SR 822 was unanimously approved by the Georgia Senate last month.

The joint resolutions (HR 1206 in the House) call on Gov. Sonny Perdue to begin border talks with Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen and to establish a joint boundary commission to resurvey the border by January.

Tennessee dismisses plans for a boundary commission. North-of-the-border lawyers cite Supreme Court rulings on “adverse possession” — Georgia, essentially, abandoned any claim by not contesting ownership for 190 years.

Tennessee cites a 1990 case between Georgia and South Carolina over islands in the Savannah River. The Supreme Court ruled the land belonged to South Carolina, which had taxed and policed the islands for decades.

Shafer and Carver, though, cite other high court rulings that dismiss “adverse possession” as the final say in border disputes.

“There is no room … for the application of the principle that long acquiescence may establish a boundary otherwise uncertain,” Justice Benjamin Cardozo wrote in 1934 upon resolution of a dispute between New Jersey and Delaware.