Panama Canal Expansion Breaks Ground

Site of the Panama Canal Project

Source: Tico Times

PANAMA CITY, Panama – The Panama Canal, completed in 1914, is perhaps the greatest engineering feat of all time. “A Man, A Plan, A Canal – Panama,” is perhaps the greatest palindrome of all time. And now, the $5.2 billion canal-expansion project, which just broke ground and is scheduled to be completed in time to mark the 100th anniversary of the canal in 2014, is perhaps the greatest remodeling project of all time.

The expansion of the world’s most important commercial route consists of building a third set of locks that are 40 percent longer and 60 percent wider than the original locks, allowing the Panama Canal to double its shipping capacity by 2025.

Times have changed the way the project is being planned and executed. Whereas the first lock system was built based on 20th century navigation experience, today engineers from all over the world are collaborating on developing complex, three-dimensional design models based on new technologies and sophisticated water-use studies.

Panama’s tropical environment, once considered an obstacle to progress, is now viewed as key to making the project sustainable for the next 100 years.

And basic advances in hygiene, health and safety have essentially eliminated the threats of malaria and yellow fever, which claimed tens of thousands of lives during construction of the original canal.

Jorge de la Guardia, head engineer and executive manager of the new Locks Project Management Division, said the Panama Canal’s success over the past century can be credited as much to good luck as good engineering.

“Everything about the original canal and the decisions that were made worked in many cases thanks to lots of luck,” De la Guardia told The Nica Times during a recent interview in his office inside the Panama Canal Authority.

For example, the head engineer said, the fact that the lock system has three chambers instead of two prevents – quite unintentionally – the intrusion of salty ocean water into the fresh water of Lake Gatun, which serves as the main source of drinking water for Panama City.

Diluted ocean water filters through the first two chambers of the lock system when a ship is being lifted to the level of the Gatun Lake, 26 meters above sea level. But by the third chamber, the fresh water from the lake flushes out the remaining salt water before it can reach the lake, De la Guardia said.

“That wasn’t by design,” De la Guardia said.

The engineer said the original designs had nothing to do with environmental concerns or water-quality considerations.

“But it turned out well,” he said, adding that the saline level of Lake Gatun remains “basically unperceptible” after almost a century of canal use.

This time around, however, engineers are not leaving the environment to chance. De la Guardia says the design of the new lock system is very deliberate about protecting the environment and conserving Panama’s natural resources as much as possible.

“This time everything is very scientific,” the engineer said. “We have done very profound studies of water quality and we are developing a new three-dimensional model to monitor the quality of water in Lake Gatun.”

If there is any measured increase in the lake’s saline content from the new locks, the whole system can be flushed and cleaned, De la Guardia said.