This is an act of war although it certainly won’t be treated as such. U.S. and Mexican agents scrambled last month to stop the paramilitary Los Zetas from blowing up the Falcon Dam which is connected to Falcon Lake, the scene of the recent Mexican Narco-piracy that’s been in the news. The pirates are Gulf Cartel fighters so it is possible this was an attempt by the Zetas to assert themselves in Gulf Cartel areas.

From the Chron:

An alleged plot by a Mexican drug cartel to blow up a dam along the Texas border — and unleash billions of gallons of water into a region with millions of civilians — sent American police, federal agents and disaster officials secretly scrambling last month to thwart such an attack, authorities confirmed Wednesday.

Whether or not the cartel, which is known to have stolen bulk quantities of gunpowder and dynamite, could have taken down the 5-mile-long Falcon Dam may never be known since the attack never came to pass.

It may have been derailed by a stepped-up presence by the Mexican military, which was acting in part on intelligence from the U.S. government, sources said.

The warning, which swung officials into action, was based on what the federal government contends were “serious and reliable sources” and prompted the Department of Homeland Security to sound the alarm to first responders along the South Texas-Mexico border.

Mexico’s Zeta cartel was planning to destroy the dam not to terrorize civilians, but to get back at its rival and former ally, the Gulf cartel, which controls smuggling routes from the reservoir to the Gulf of Mexico, said Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez, head of the Southwest Border Sheriff’s Coalition, as did others familiar with the alleged plot.

But in the process, massive amounts of agricultural land would stand to be flooded as well as significant parts of a region where about 4 million people live along both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border.

Causing many deaths, of course. Some reports are saying that Mexican residents of the area were warned by Los Zetas to leave the area, but the Americans were  not. But no worries, the authorities don’t believe they could have actually blown up the dam, you know, because no dam has ever been blown up by soldiers?

With handbills and bullhorns, members of the Zeta cartel are said to have warned the civilian population on the Mexican side of the river near the dam to get out of the area, according to residents and intelligence information from law enforcement officials.

A border law enforcement official told the Chronicle the warnings originated in part by the seizure of small amounts of dynamite near the dam, and the discovery of a copy of the alert on the Mexican side of the border.

Capt. Francisco Garcia, of the Roma (Texas) Police Department, said there was no way to know what the traffickers were capable of doing, but bringing down the dam would require nearly a tractor-trailer full of dynamite.

“As far as blowing it up — making it fall apart completely — it would have to be something like 9/11,” he said. “By the time they’d start to do something, there will be so much law enforcement there it’d be ridiculous.”

Really? How many bridges and dams were blown in WW II? I don’t recall there being airliners needed to do that job. Sounds like the authorities are now scrambling to make sure there’s no panic.

I’d be on high alert if I was living near Falcon Dam. Have your bug out bag ready to go.

Food inflation is already a growing problem, if we suffer a plague of locusts like scientist are predicting the much vaunted leftist myth of American children going to bed hungry will become a stark, and destabilizing, reality:

The worst grasshopper outbreak in decades may envelop the western states this summer, scientists warn.

A dramatic rise in the number of grasshoppers was found during a survey of the western states conducted last year, by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). And while that may seem bad enough on its own, it’s really the grasshoppers’ kids that are the threat.

If last summer’s adults were successful during mating season, then the worst grasshopper infestation in 30 years could strike ranches and agricultural land in the Great Plains states between late July and early August, said Roeland Elliston of the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service in Fort Collins, Colo., who worked on the survey.

Ecologist David Branson who was not involved with the study but specializes in grasshopper management with the USDA in Sidney, Mont., agreed.

Pacific Northwest states such as Washington are also facing their worst grasshopper infestation in 30 years, said entomologist Richard Zach of Washington State University in Pullman, Wash., who was not involved in the survey.

The USDA survey included the number of adult grasshoppers from late spring to early fall in 2009. Based on those numbers, and favorable reproductive conditions such as the mild winter this year, researchers identified areas at risk of a grasshopper infestation, including states in the Great Plains and the Pacific Northwest.

Montana, Wyoming and Nebraska – states with typically high numbers of grasshoppers due to the large expanses of open range land there – are already seeing more than eight grasshoppers per square yard. That’s like walking through a field and having eight grasshoppers fly in your face with every step, Zach said.

The problem is also moving into the Pacific Northwest which is unused to dealing with these swarms. Though the article claims non-farming citizens should not be concerned only the most short sighted person could make the argument that damage to crop yields by swarms of grasshoppers won’t affect us all.

We’re heading into some lean years, I suggest getting prepared.

h/t Survival Blog