Oxendine: Let’s grab Tennessee water
BY Ken Edelstein • January 26, 2010
Gubernatorial candidate John Oxendine certainly can’t be accused of avoiding conflicts.
The frontrunning Republican in the 2010 contest told Chattanooga’s daily last week that, if elected, he’ll try to convince Tennessee’s next governor to share water from the Tennessee River with Georgia. And, in case that effort fails (which seems likely), he’s already threatening to take the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“You simply go to the Supreme Court, lay out the facts and let them put it to bed one way or the other,” he told the Chattanooga Times Free Press editorial board.
A handful of Georgia lawmakers drew headlines — and national ridicule — in 2008 by insisting that Tennessee share water from the river, which comes within a mile of Georgia and would have actually reached into Georgia if it hadn’t been for surveying error more than two centuries ago.
Georgia’s high court argument presumably would be that it can lay claim to water in the Tennessee because of the error. In a video of his meeting with the Free Press, however, Oxendine seems to make Tennessee’s case for it: “Georgia’s known this for a long time. When you’ve been waiting a long time — Georgia has set on its rights and that’s a problem.”
It apparently was the first time on the campaign trail that Oxendine advocated taking water from the Tennessee River. His 12-point “Contract with Georgia” offers a one-dimensional solution to north Georgia’s looming water shortfall. “What we have to do is harness the natural resource that God has given us and save it for our citizens when we need it,” he says in a video accompanying the contract. “As governor, I will immediately start the process of digging a series of state owned and operated reservoirs over North Georgia.”
Not a word yet from Oxendine about conservation.
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