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.