Ferrista

Setting

Ferrista is in the Vandorum upland, a plateau of old rock cut by valleys, where ore and timber were both to hand. The ironworks were built here in the 1760s under the Kingdom. Snow lies on the high ground for six to ten weeks, and the upland soils are thin and acid, eroding rapidly once the tree cover is removed.

History

The Depression response of 1929 to 1935 paid for imports by cutting the Vandorum forest, and roughly a fifth of the old growth was gone by 1935. The erosion that followed is still being repaired. The replanting began in 1983 on a hundred-year schedule and is behind that schedule. The representatives of the town raise the delay at each session of the sub-regional council.

Uranium

Uranium was found in the uplands above the town in 1956, during the search for anything that might replace the coal and oil the embargo had cut off. The deposits are shallow and of high grade, and they are the only mineral wealth the Republic has ever had in quantity. The research reactor here went critical in 1958. Milling, fuel fabrication and the national training school for reactor engineers are all in the valley, and the tailings above the town are an entry on the contaminated sites register kept under Article 34(4).

Work and provision

Metalworking and the quarry, uranium mining and milling, fuel fabrication, forestry and replanting, and the upland restoration corps. The Commissioner for Future Generations examines both the replanting schedule and the waste custody reservation at intervals of no more than five years under Article 258(3).

Government

Elected communal council under Article 141(2).