Enclosure is coming this year, in late 2114. Are you and your loved ones prepared? PSTU 3 has all the latest news and coverage on pre-Enclosure events. Stay tuned here for important news as it happens. [more info]
February 15, 2114
(Portland) Even while much of the United States has been plunged into drought and famine, the damp Pacific Northwest had managed to sustain agriculture in its wettest regions. That may all be coming to an end. Federal hydrologists released their annual forecast on Tuesday. It contains a list of remaining viable water sources, rainfall and snowpack projections, and fire projections. The news continues to be bad: low water, low snow and rainfall, and high risk of fire.
Of the 403 active rivers from a century ago, only 58 still support annual drainage; another 119 remain seasonal rivers. Over half—226—have dried up completely. The remaining rivers are not able to support the vast agricultural regions of Hood River and the Yakima Valley, and increasingly, even the wet Willamette Valley is stressed for water.
"We're seeing the same strain to meet city and agricultural needs that have plagued the rest of the country," said Estelle Florio, the region’s lead hydrologist. These pressures led mass emigration out of the major population centers of the Southwest and areas of the plains and Midwest. In those regions, declining water sources led to violence and lawlessness—and Florio reports that this is likely coming to the Northwest. "Farmers need to realize that people will come for their water." In the lower Willamette Valley, a region particularly hard-hit by long-term unemployment, militias have long been the central source of authority. Florio expects members of these militias to seize key water sources within the next few years.
The Army Corps of Engineers also reports that for a third consecutive year, the Columbia River is expected to remain unnavigable by commercial shipping. There was a small snowpack above 7,000 feet this year, but it will not sustain levels high enough for large ships. The Port of Astoria will continue to serve as the region’s central shipping port.
With the small snowpack, range fires should continue to be a problem. The few pockets of forest land remaining in the region will be at high risk for fire as well. The largest stands in the Olympic Peninsula and Tillamook forest had been guarded by the federal Western Firewatchers, but the agency was defunded in 2110. Last year, range fires consumed nearly a million acres of grassland and cast a dense pall of smoke over the region from early August through October. Florio warns that we should expect more of the same this year.
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