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thursday, april 26, 2007

The Panama Canal

The Panama Canal is one of the greatest engineering feats in history. Its construction cost $400 million, required more than 75,000 workers and took more than a decade to accomplish.

After almost 100 years of operation, the historic waterway is having a tough time adapting to the demands of the modern world. Today the canal authority - known as the ACP - operates the waterway at an estimated 90 percent capacity with more than 14,000 ships completing transit each year. The waiting line to transit can be days and, when there are maintenance closures that can stretch to weeks.

Moreover, size is a problem. Gigantic container ships are now built to fit the size of the canal’s prodigious locks exactly. But the boom in international shipping has prompted the construction of a new generation of vessels – post-panamax – that can carry almost three times as much.

Last October, Panamanians went to the polls and approved a $5.25 billion expansion to the canal that will include the construction of a new lane of traffic and locks that can accommodate these larger vessels.

My story on the planned expansion, Panama Canal Construction Shapes the Future for Shipping, is in this week’s edition of Engineering News-Record. I have also put together a three-minute slideshow about the canal and expansion made from photographs I took during my visit there last month.

There is a common misconception about the canal – that it is one big ditch across the isthmus. The heart of the waterway is actually the Gatun Lake which was created by damming of the Chagres River.

The Gaillard Cut, a 8.5-mile long stretch of the canal is the section that most closely resembles this idea of the waterway. But the cut was excavated only due to necessity. It makes up only 15 percent of the canal’s length, but required the excavation or more than half the 5.4 billion cubic feet of material removed.

Likewise, the expansion will not require digging a new 50-mile lane. It will be creating relatively short by-passes to the existing entrances.

“Seventy five percent of what we handle with the canal is navigation channels, said Augustin Arias, Director of Engineering and Projects for the ACP. “To do the expansion we want to take advantage of what we have.”

My interview with the director, Canal Authority's Arias In an Expansive Mood, where he discusses the project and how the ACP plans to execute it is on the ENR website.

The construction of the new locks is estimated to cost $3.32 billion. The locks and access channels will be located in the remains of a previous attempt to add a third lane to the waterway by the US Army in the late 1930s that was mothballed due to the onset of World War II.

But to accommodate the ginormous Post-Panamax vessels, all of the navigation channels as well as the ocean approaches will have to be substantially deepened and widened - a job that will require the dredging and excavation of more than 1.8 billion cubic feet of material.

To accomplish that, the ACP is doubling their existing dredging fleet. Already the four unique vessels make up the largest dredging fleet in Central America.

My story on the dredging operations, Panama's huge dredging fleet will soon double, and a two-minute slideshow about this unique fleet is available on the ENR website.

comment posted by: Monika Herrera on may 21, 2008 @ 12:07 pm

These are some cool pictures. Loved that half boat and reading up on your information about Panama was very insightful too.

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