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Tenn. lawmakers denounce Georgia boundary resolution<br>
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee officials are denouncing a resolution passed by the Georgia legislature that urges a reconsideration of the boundary between the two states.<br>
Georgia lawmakers, led by Republican state Sen. David Shafer, argue the border was wrongly drawn in the 19th century, depriving drought-stricken Georgians of their rightful access to the plentiful water supply of the Tennessee River. Tennessee State Rep. Gerald McCormick, a Chattanooga Republican, called the resolution the “silliest thing I’ve ever seen any group of Republicans do.<br>
“I’m embarrassed that they would embarrass the party like that,” he said. “They’re idiots.”<br>
Congress in 1796 designated that Tennessee’s southern borders should stretch along the 35th Parallel, but surveyors in 1818 missed that mark by about 1.1 miles to the south. If the line had been drawn correctly, Georgia would have access to the Tennessee River, which has about 15 times greater flow than the one Atlanta depends upon for water.<br>
But trying to change the state lines now is “an absurd approach,” said Will Pinkston, a senior adviser to Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen.<br>
“It’s unfortunate that Georgia didn’t plan accordingly for growth over the past couple of decades, and now is trying to rewrite 200 years of history to address their mistakes,” Pinkston said. “Under no circumstances will Governor Bredesen turn over Tennessee’s water to Georgia.”<br>
Critics also point out the proposal would have effects on the state line beyond just the Tennessee River near Chattanooga. <br>Mississippi would also get a slice of Memphis – Tennessee’s largest city – and thousands of residents could have new home states.
The resolution alone can’t move the state line, which would require an agreement between the states and approval by Congress. Tennessee State Sen. Andy Berke scoffed at the rationale for the resolution.<br>
“I can pass a resolution today that says I get to have my neighbor’s house, but that doesn’t make it so,” said Berke, a Chattanooga Democrat. “Georgia needs to be looking at responsible solutions for how to deal with water and land-use planning, rather than irresponsible land grabs.”<br>
McCormick said there’s little for Tennessee lawmakers to do in response to the move by their counterparts in Georgia.
“Only ridicule them and laugh at them,” he said. “And that’s what we’ll be doing.”<br>
Fire hits maple syrup farm days before syrup festival
ROCKVILLE, Ind. (AP) — A fire destroyed the syrup-making building on a western Indiana farm days before the start of the annual Parke County Maple Syrup Fair.<br>
The Feb. 19 fire at the Williams and Teague Maple Syrup Camp near Rockville burned down the sugar house, where tree sap is cooked down into syrup. No one was injured in the blaze.
Co-owner John Teague said the fire may have started in the corner of the 1,800 square-foot sugar house where a cordless drill was being recharged.<br>
“Everything in the sugar house is gone,” said David Perry, who helps at the farm.<br>
The fire came four days before the annual fair, which was last weekend at the Parke County fairgrounds. It also runs March 1-2. The Williams and Teague farm will still sell syrup at this year’s fair, just not as much as usual because of the fire, said Florence Williams, who co-owns the camp with Teague.<br>
Teague said the farm will still tap maple trees and collect sap. A fellow syrup maker from Greencastle, Ind., will bring equipment from his farm to turn that sap into syrup for the fair, he said.<br>
Poll: Farmers have concerns on using stover for ethanol<br>

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — Proponents tout leftover plant materials from corn harvest to make ethanol as an environmentally friendly way to produce the renewable fuel. But a new poll shows that many farmers are concerned the practice could lead to soil erosion.<br>
The Iowa State University extension polled farm operators on the issue in the 2007 Iowa Farm and Rural Life Poll. Seventy-five percent of the nearly 1,100 respondents said that removing the plant residue, called corn stover, will increase soil erosion.<br>
David Laird, a professor in the ISU Department of Agronomy, agrees with the farmers and writes in a report that although corn stover is often referred to as waste, it is a vital component of soil agro-systems.<br>
“Crop residues contain substantial amounts of plant nutrients. If crop residues were harvested every year, these nutrients would have to be replaced by increased fertilizer use,” he said in his report. “If all aboveground crop residues were removed year after year, the quality of our soils would rapidly deteriorate.”<br>
Laird’s report is titled The Charcoal Vision: A Win-Win-Win Scenario for Simultaneously Producing Bioenergy, Permanently Sequestering Carbon, While Improving Soil and Water Quality.<br>
The Iowa Farm and Rural Life Poll has been conducted annually since 1982. The 2007 poll focused on the bioeconomy and its impact on Iowa farming. The ISU extension mailed a questionnaire to a statewide panel of 1,473 farm operators and surveys were returned by 1,095 producers, for a response rate of 74 percent.
Moving the state toward energy independence was considered a worthy goal by 86 percent of the respondents, and 77 percent said Iowa should lead the country in research and innovation on the bioeconomy.<br>
While almost half of the farm operators said ISU’s top research priority should be biorenewable energy, 75 percent believed that research on biofuel should not take the place of traditional crop and livestock research.

2/27/2008