Enlarging the Panama Canal: Making Room for World Shipping
The 51 mile long Panama Canal links the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans with a series of 12 locks and the 164 square mile Gatun Lake. The French first attempted to construct a canal but were defeated by the climate and tropical illnesses. Strongly advocated by U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, the Canal was undertaken by Americans beginning in May 1904. The first ship navigated it in September of 1913 and the Panama Canal was officially opened in August 1914.
As construction of ships has improved, a growing number of vessels are too wide or too long to travel the Canal. Their alternative is to round either Africa or South America which adds thousands of miles to a voyage and weeks more of transit time. The current locks are a usable 110 feet wide.
The revenues produced by Canal fees are so vital to Panama that in 2006 its citizens voted for a $5.25 billion canal expansion plan. The Canal will be widened and its capacity doubled. The plan uses much of the expansion work done by the United States in the late 1930's but never completed due to World War II. New locks, both wider and longer, will be built on both the Atlantic and the Pacific sides of the Canal, allowing for the passage of much larger ships. Innovative water conservation measures will actually result in using 7% less water in the new locks than in the original ones. The expansion should be completed in 2015.
Ports on both coasts of the United States are eagerly preparing for the increase in traffic through the Panama Canal. Gulf Coast ports are especially interested since the expansion will allow shipping from the Far East to bypass their current ports of call on the West Coast of the U.S. for those in the Gulf.
Modernization of the Canal will benefit Panama immensely. It will also benefit trade world wide but cutting travel time and costs for those products transported by ship from one hemisphere to the other.
Published by Charles Simmins
Charles Simmins is a native Western New Yorker with nearly thirty years of experience at senior level accounting positions in non-profit and for profit organizations. He was a volunteer firefighter, and a vo... View profile
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1 Comments
Post a CommentIt was the Scots who first tried to establish a trade route across the Ismuth of Panama. The attempt was an economic and political disaster, leading directly to Scotland accepting the Act of Union with England.
Although the end of the Medieval Warm Period caused mass starvation in Scotland at around the same time.