Water and Environmental Management in the Expansion of the Panama Canal

The Panama Canal provides one of the most important navigation routes and port hubs in the world. It consists of a 77-kilometer (48 mile) ship channel that joins the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. It has been one of the most difficult engineering projects ever undertaken and has replaced the alternative long and dangerous routes through the Strait of Magellan or Cape Horn at the southernmost tip of South America. The Canal not only services transport activities between eastern and western North America, but also South America, Asia and Europe. Work on the Canal started in 1904, finished in 1913, and was open for traffic on August 15, 1914. In total, close to a million vessels have passed through it to date. It has been named one of the seven modern wonders of the world by the American Society of Civil Engineers. The maximum size of vessel that can use the canal as it stands now, typically has a Dead Weight Tonnage of 65,000-80,000 tons and is known as Panamax. However, today's technology is pushing towards even bigger ships that largely exceed the current maximum capacity and size limits. These vessels are known as Post-Panamax. The Canal has had no other choice but to "reinvent" itself in order to keep up with these new floating high capacity ships, and is doing so essentially by expanding the canal (and related infrastructure) to meet the new demand. The Government of Panama is investing approximately US$ 6 Billion to improve infrastructure in order to accommodate the passage of those vessels. The Canal expansion is currently under way and it is to be finished in 2014 (coinciding with the Canal's 100th anniversary). It consists of a new set of locks on the Pacific and the Atlantic that will allow the larger ships to maneuver much more easily than the existing infrastructure. Each lock will have three chambers that act as reutilization containers. The program also entails the widening and deepening of existing navigational channels, elevation of the Gatun Lake and the deepening of the Culebra (or Gaillard) Cut (the narrowest section in the entire Canal). The project entails massive excavation, filling and related civil works plus the installation of hydraulic and sophisticated electro-mechanical equipment. The new sets of locks are hydraulically driven and have been designed under two main principles: (i) the system should be environmentally sound while using the most efficient water saving technologies, and (ii) it should make the best use of the Canal watershed water supply to avoid building new reservoirs. The Panama Canal Authority (ACP for its acronym in Spanish) has deployed a massive effort to make this project as sustainable and water efficient as possible. Construction contractors are under strict supervision, and the project is moving forward achieving the planned goals as well as sustainability objectives pertaining to construction and operation.