Georgia senators have found an innovative way to tackle the historic drought that has left them desperate for water: They recently voted to reinvestigate what they say was a flawed survey in 1818 that mistakenly marked Georgia's border one mile south of the 35th parallel, which happens to run through the Tennessee River.

The story goes, surveyors charting out the 35th parallel were either frightened by a nearby Indian party, used flawed math, or were drunk and drew the line too far south.

From the Tennessean:

This isn't the first time lawmakers tried to reopen the argument. The resolution traces attempts to resolve the dispute as far back as 1887, when North Carolina — another border state involved in the dispute — authorized its governor to appoint commissioners and a surveyor to meet with neighboring delegations over the boundary.

More recently, Georgia legislators urged the governor in 1971 to launch joint surveys with North Carolina and Tennessee, but the border fight was never settled.

Georgia has eyed the Tennessee River for generations, but its interest has grown with the recent drought. Atlanta, which experts say relies on the smallest watershed among major U.S. metropolitan areas, needs water.

This is probably a relatively harmless dispute that will be resolved with a compromise. But it may be a good indicator of things to come on a global level as nation states compete for increasingly scarce water resources.