Green Daily

As a super drought continues to shrivel and crack Georgia's parched soil, residents in nearby Chattanooga, TN kick up their feet and watch the supple Tennessee River flow by. It's all due to a University of Georgia mathematician named James Camak, who in 1818 made one of the most infamous blunders in modern cartography. He accidentally established the state's boundary 1.1 miles short of the Tennessee River's bountiful water resources -- and now Atlanta residents can't fill up their swimming pools.

Almost 200 years later, the border dispute is ongoing. Not that it's really be an constant issue over the centuries, but Georgia has tried a few times to right this wrong before. As you might imagine, Tennessee has remained somewhat guarded over redrawing it's state lines on account of a clumsy UGA mathematician. It all hinges on an old college rivalry.

In 1796, Georgia's northern border was established as the 35th parallel, but when Camak went out to place the boundary markers, he flubbed it up and planted them a mile south. Now that erratic weather and irresponsible growth has joined forces in Atlanta to make the perfect storm drought, Georgia wants to renegotiate the boundary, so it can get a taste of the sweet waters of the Tennessee -- and lawyers are lining up to take on the case. Are we watching one of the first of global warming's battles for resources right here in the good ol' USA?