Gators-Bulldogs rivalry leaving Jacksonville? Game could factor in interstate water wars
by Michael C. Bender | July 23rd, 2009
From the Associated Press in Atlanta:
A Republican legislator wants to use the University of Georgia’s annual grudge match against the University of Florida as a bargaining chip in the long-running dispute over water rights.
State Sen. John Douglas, a Social Circle Republican, says the game should be played every other year in Georgia instead of Jacksonville, Fla. The rivalry attracts tens of thousands of fans and has an estimated economic impact of $25 million for the north Florida city.
Georgia officials were sent scrambling after a federal judge’s devastating ruling last week that said the state had little rights to withdraw water from a massive reservoir at the center of a dispute involving Georgia, Florida and Alabama. The ruling gives lawmakers three years to hash out a compromise.
Tags: Bulldogs, Gators, water wars
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July 23rd, 2009 at 9:18 pm
Bravo for Senator Douglas! He has a point. Why would Georgians want to spend money in a state that has such little (none?) regard for its neighbors? I cannot tell you how upset the citizens of Atlanta are at Florida and Alabama. We use only a fraction of the water that is consumed from the Chattahoochee and now Florida has gotten a judge to declare we can’t use our own rainfall??!! Incredible! I loved visiting Florida, but I don’t care if I never set foot in the state again. And I am a landowner.
July 23rd, 2009 at 9:24 pm
If the Georgians in Atlanta want to keep and use their own rainfall, they should build their own reservoir.
July 23rd, 2009 at 10:17 pm
Oh, whasup…I guess if Georgians built their own reservoir on the Chattahoochee it would be okay with Alabama and Florida for us to use as much of it as we want? Get real.
The selfish ones in this are the business pigs in Florida and Alabama whose only desire is to make Atlanta squirm.