Atlanta Water Shortage

The AJC has an interesting story about how the north part of Georgia should include part of the Tennessee River, which would give us access to all of that water.  However, a cheap governor in the early 1800’s caused the state line to be placed about a mile too far south, cutting us off from the river.

It doesn’t directly affect the current drought situation (and no, we shouldn’t try to sue to “claim what’s ours”), but it’s a unique story nonetheless.

If you are curious about where some of the newsworthy areas of the drought are located (such as Buford Dam or the Farley Nuclear power plant), you can now download this file and check them out in Google Earth.

If you don’t have Google Earth, you can download it here.   For more information about Google Earth, you can visit Google Earth Hacks (lots of files to play with) or the Google Earth Blog (lots of great information).

(via Freshloaf) The New York Times has an article online today about the Georgia water situation.  For the most part, it’s quite critical of how we’ve handled our water supply.  From the article:

The response to the worst drought on record in the Southeast has unfolded in ultra-slow motion. All summer, more than a year after the drought began, fountains blithely sprayed, football fields were watered, prisoners got two showers a day and Coca-Cola’s bottling plants chugged along at full strength.

Read the full version on the NY Times site.