The Marvelous Canal

The Panama Canal is listed as one of the seven greatest industrial marvels of the modern world. It has a well-deserved reputation. The engineering feat spans across fifty miles. The turn of the century visionaries battled a nearly impenetrable jungle, and an equally unforgiving rain forest, as well as tumultuous mountains. The builders and workers on the canal would face every type of tropical disease imaginable; most particularly yellow fever and malaria. What they accomplished was the most important navigational route in the world for shipping goods from the Atlantic side of the North American Continent to the Pacific.

What Makes the Panama Canal Remarkable

U.S. Navy

The Panama Canal is not the longest canal in the world, nor even in North America. With over three hundred miles in length, the Eerie outstrips it by far. Nor is using a lock system anything new. Locks were used as early as 960 A.D., by the Chinese, and well incorporated into nineteenth century architecture. However, no other canal has had to meet the challenges that went into the construction of the one in Panama.

Prior to the building of the Panama Canal, most canals were built across relatively flat land. The locks developed were used to control the amount of water flow over uneven land or to make a river more easily navigable.

When the construction of the Panama Canal began by France in 1881, the ambition was a sea level canal. Buoyed with confidence by the completion of the Suez Canal, private financiers backed the builder, Ferdinand de Lesseps to begin a similar project in Panama.

Lesseps was completely unprepared for the far more hostile environment. Torrential rains and landslides in the unstable mountains continuously hampered his efforts. Diseases ran rampant. By 1889, France had given up in defeat. During the eight year construction period, it had cost the investors $287,000,000, with an additional loss in human lives at 22,000, including nearly the entire family of the Panama project’s Director General, Jules Dingler. The Panama Canal enterprise had cleared eleven miles.

Crossing the Great Divide

Lesseps’ determination to build a sea level canal was ruled by a flawed logic. He was unfamiliar with North American geology and the Great Divide, which extends up through the Rocky Mountains into Canada.

This is an area where the mountains were formed by two tectonic plates colliding together. His sea level would be a constantly shifting, sliding floor that not only held two separate oceans, but contained two separate plates, sliding, grinding and colliding with each other.

By 1902, when the United States purchased the abandoned canal from France, the world had begun going through some rapid technical and scientific advancements. President Theodore Roosevelt chose John Frank Stevens for his Chief Engineer, a man who advocated using a lock-based system that would raise the ships to the level of the mountains, instead of attempting to dig to sea level.

A New Landscape

Curtis Fry

One of the difficulties Lesseps had encountered was the Chagres Rivers. Influenced by the changing tides and seasonal rains, the winding river resisted the efforts to tame it, flooding without warning, toppling layers of freshly cut work with it. Stevens’ proposal included damming the river and creating a lake as part of the Panama Canal route.

The War on Mosquitos

The crew that landed in Panama in the 1880’s were mystified by the diseases that occupied the region. They suspected it had to do with unsanitary conditions and attempted to keep their dwellings as clean as possible. Yet malaria and yellow fever seemed impervious to cautious lifestyles.

As science entered the twentieth century, so did its knowledge that mosquitos were the carriers of these dreaded diseases. The U.S. crew sent in to begin building the new lock system canal, also came prepared to make war on mosquitos.

Stagnant pools were drained and mosquito infested areas were sprayed. An adequate sewage system was put into the French built town. Netting was placed over all doors and windows. By the time the Panama Canal was built, the disease carrying mosquitos had been eradicated along with malaria and yellow fever.

The Developing Canal

Another advantage of the ushered in new century was a deeper understanding of hydraulics. Steam power was in full gear. A railroad had already been built crossing the strait of Panama, close to the location they wished to build. The work that had begun primarily from manual labor was now made easier with steam shovels and cranes.

If the equipment used was the best the time period had to offer, the technology involved in building the canal was a concept so modern, its ingenuity continues to be admired. The new canal had constructed what was at the time, the world’s largest dam and artificially created lake. Three sets of double locks controlled the water height, with one set raising the vessel eighty feet as it entered Gatún Lake. The locks and dam required four and a half million cubic yards of concrete. The extensive electrical system used to power the locks was one of the earliest complex systems ever used.

The Panama Canal Today

Bruce Tuten

Each day, an average of forty ships pass through the Panama Canal. Four percent of the world’s trade and sixteen percent of the U.S. trade uses the shipping route through Panama.

The flourishing business nurtured a flourishing city. The buildings left by the early French effort to settle in the lush, tropical region, were absorbed by the American workers, who improved and expanded them, added to them, inexorably shaping the settlement into a highly industrial city.

The advanced architecture and technology of the Panama Canal has influenced the development of Panama City. Sleekly modern, its appeal draws businesses, investors, entrepreneurs and international residents.

The Panama Canal also draws a booming industry of tourists. The canal is not only one of the seven engineering wonders of the modern world, it’s beautiful. The sparkling Caribbean waters give way gently to a graceful, winding river, that broadens into the tropical forest setting of the Gatún Lake. Dotted throughout the lake are a number of islands, including the world famous wildlife sanctuary, the Barro Colorado Island.

Future Economic Impact

Traffic through the Panama Canal is so extensive, ships wait in long lines to be cleared for passage. As global industry grapples with the problems of resource demands and economy, ships have grown larger to accommodate global trade more efficiently. Where once a Panamax was the largest ship size to pass through the locks, there are a growing number of larger ships that are forced to take their cargo on the extra nautical miles sailing around Cape Horn.

Panama has begun earnestly on a third shipping lane that will reduce the average waiting period for passage.

The project will not only increase the number and size of the ships passing through its locks, it is expected to increase trade on the U.S. East Coast. Presently, the Post-Panamax ships bypassing the canal are also bypassing East Coast ports, carrying their cargo to the over-crowded Los Angeles ports. The longer journey, and consequent added expense, has added to the price of imported goods, further straining an already distressed economy.

In anticipation of Panama’s expansion plans, scheduled to be completed by 2015, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey have already spent $800 million on dredging and deepening their ports to accommodate the giant post-Panamax ships, and have authorized an extra billion for raising the Bayonne Bridge fifty feet higher. At present, a fully loaded post-Panamax ship is able to go under the bridge and into the harbor, but once unloaded, would not be able to make it out as it then sits taller in the water.

Sound Management for the Panama Canal

Robert Ciavarro

The government of Panama has already begun to look for new ways to allow vessels to pass through the canal within their scheduled transit time. A new service, called Just In Time, uses Satellite Automatic System technology for tracking vessels within 2,000 nautical miles before arrival to ensure they can arrive at the canal in their scheduled booking time. The trial service is designed to allow vessels more energy efficiency by reducing their waiting period at anchor before beginning their actual canal transit.

An issue that has become critical over recent years is the depleting water resources in Gatún Lake. The current canal loses fresh water each time the locks open during the downward lock cycle. The widened canal design would use water saving devices at each lock, for a total of nine basins, conserving and recycling sixty percent of fresh water use.

Why Panama Is a Solid Investment

Panama’s economic policies have made it the leader among Central American countries. With the canal as its center for trade, the gross domestic product per capita is $11,700. As its major investor, the United States is inexorably tied to the canal, depending on its services to mitigate the rising costs of fuel. Seventy percent of the traffic through the Panama Canal is in vessels from or bound for U.S. shores. It is the quickest route for bringing Asian products to the Pacific waters of commerce.

Although a new canal through Nicaragua and a route through the Northwest Passage have been discussed, and are even on the planning tables of some countries, both regions come with their difficulties. A canal through Nicaragua would be three times the length of the Panama Canal. Although it would utilize the rivers and the enormous Lake Nicaragua, separated by only a narrow strip of land, it would cost approximately 40 billion dollars and take eleven years to build. Opponents to the canal state the consequences to Nicaragua’s delicate environment could be disastrous.

Ownership of the Northwest Passage is still in dispute. The waterway is a journey through a treacherous ocean that is rarely ice free. Beside the human risk, there is risk to a number of endangered species of marine life.

The Practical Choice

The cost of the Panama Canal expansion is approximately $5.35 billion, a sum that will easily realize profit within a few years. The volume of traffic has continued to increase on a yearly basis despite the appearance of Post-Panamax ships. With the new locks in place, it will be able to handle three times its current volume, as well as accommodate larger vessels.

Panama has consistently shown a peaceful international resolve, a strong sense of responsibility toward its environment, and commitment to its people. Its foresight, beginning with the most advanced engineering feat of its time, continues to mark it as a country that forges ahead with practical applications for the future. Because of its skilled management of its affairs, which include economic stability through good stewardship, Panama remains the most practical Central American investment and the hub of maritime travel.