The Death and Life of the Great Lakes

Egan states, “future fights will be about the one liquid that civilization literally cannot do without”—water (247). Although the U.S. is fortunate to possess 20% of the world’s fresh water in the Great Lakes, lawmakers are already concerned over squandering this resource; there are boundaries around the Great Lakes watershed demarcating which regions of the U.S. and Canada can use this water and which cannot. Cities inside the border may use this water for agriculture and drinking water; cities outside the border may not. The governors of the eight states surrounding the Great Lakes have, however, agreed to transport water outside the border so long as it goes to a town in a county that falls at least partially inside the border. Most people in the Great Lakes states don’t think about this line, but this border can be tricky for the residents in the area.

When surveyors in the early 1800s arrived to the wilderness between Tennessee and Georgia to delineate the official boundary between the two states, they botched the job. The boundary is off by more than a mile. Later in the 19th century, surveyors marked a spot for a railroad hub, which later became the city of Atlanta, Georgia.