Datestamp: 08/03/2005
Not a lock: $8B expansion of canal stirs up
opposition
Plan would flood communities, affecting 135K people
By ARACELI MASTERSON and LAURA EICHELBERGER
For the Tucson Citizen
El Harino is cooking. Since 3 a.m., residents have been preparing food for the 200 people expected at a
meeting to plot strategy against the proposed Panama Canal expansion. Some will walk 20 hours through
sweltering jungle, to reach this hilltop village.
The rivers they have waded across soon could be dammed to feed reservoirs vital to the canal's operation, the
jungles submerged.
Children hold banners that read, "Yes to life, no to dams." Farmer Sixto Martín improvises a song
about the people's right to live on the land.
The government of Panama might prefer not to have such opposition, but it can't afford to ignore it. The
government needs the people's OK for an $8 billion expansion that would displace thousands of peasants.
Wildly unpopular social security reforms and ensuing protests have apparently stalled the canal expansion
vote, once billed for this fall.
For those who see the canal as a cornerstone of the country's economy, the plight of displaced subsistence
farmers is not as critical as maintaining Panama's prominence as a trade route. Four percent of world trade
squeezes through its 110-foot locks, much of it on "panamax" ships built exactly to the dimensions of the
locks. Last year, 13,000 ships carrying 180 million tons of freight passed through. The shortcut means U.S.
shoppers pay less for cars, clothes and other consumer goods.
Enlarging the canal would be a monumental undertaking, because this is no sea-level ditch. Instead a ship
enters a lock and gates close behind it. Water from an artificial inland reservoir drains into the lock, lifting
the ship 85 feet. When the boat is at lake level, gates at the other end open. The fresh water used to lift the
ship spills out to sea.
With the passage of each panamax ship, 52 million gallons of fresh water spills to the sea. To accommodate a
new generation of supersized container ships, Panama needs bigger locks or the canal may become obsolete.
As shippers weigh the economies of sailing farther but with more freight, Panama wants to keep canal tolls
coming in.
That means damming and flooding vast tracts of forests, under the scrutiny of human-rights activists and
environmentalists. "Post-panamax" vessels would require 120 million gallons per transit, which the canal
reservoirs currently can't supply.
Not a lock: $8B expansion of canal stirs up opposition
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"There is concern that during El Niño there won't be enough water running into the Gatun Lake,"
explained Stanley Heckadon-Moreno, a Panamanian anthropologist and native of Chiriqui province who
works for the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama City.
The environmental and social issues intertwine with economics in a region already under a spotlight. Without
a base of sound science and solid support, global players might balk at expanding this huge, fragile toll road.
A big gamble
The canal was built to handle 50 ships per day, and according to the Panama Canal Authority (ACP), it's
running at 93 percent capacity. Total transit time, including the wait, averages 24 hours.
"These delays are apparent to the whole world, and companies are finding alternate routes," said Jon Carlson,
director of the Panama Canal Historical Society.
It takes only one extra day for boats between China and its biggest market destination, the East Coast of the
United States, to use Egypt's Suez Canal, which can accommodate larger vessels.
Because of the growing number of post-panamax vessels that bypass the canal, without expansion the canal
will start losing money by 2008 and in 2020 will become obsolete, according to the ACP.
The current plan involves damming three rivers and flooding an area four times the size of Tucson,
inundating hundreds of peasant communities and affecting up to 135,000 people. Average cost estimates of
$8 billion would double Panama's national debt. With growing potential competition from other routes,
there's no guarantee canal tolls will pay for the project.
Panamanian economists, ecologists, and engineers have much debated this considerable financial gamble, but
it is the public that will make the final decision in a national referendum. Though presumably the vote will
come this fall, no date has been set.
"We're working intensively, but carefully step by step," ACP Administrator Alberto Aleman Zubieta said at
Panama's annual EXPOCOMER trade show last year. "After many deliberations, we will leave the final vote
to Panamanians. This decision will be vitally important to our country's future."
The canal's fate is also a matter of national pride, a test of Panama's ability to maintain the economic success
of the canal since it was handed over by the United States on Dec. 31, 1999.
Since the transfer, the canal has earned Panama close to $1 billion, an amount the government intends to
double in the next four years. Under U.S. management, the canal at best broke even.
However, Panama's economic dependence on the canal makes the country especially vulnerable to
fluctuations in the world shipping industry and the global economy. When canal traffic dropped during the
2001 world economic slump, Panama's economic growth rate plunged to nearly zero. Two years later, a
global economic boom and the anticipated war in Iraq diverted traffic from the Suez to the Panama Canal,
boosting the country's gross domestic product.
In September 2003, China, one of the largest users of the canal, began expressing interest in financing the
construction of a rival canal in Nicaragua.
Struggle begins
Plan would flood communities, affecting 135K people
2
At the Miraflores Locks visitors' center, a short drive up the canal from Panama City, awe-struck tourists
watch the procession of six-story container ships squeeze between the lock's concrete walls, while a voice
from the loudspeaker describes the canal as "the symbol of Panamanian national pride."
Back in El Harino, the meeting continues under the aggressive noon sun. Until the referendum, the peasants
and government officials will vie for public support of their side.
Earlier this year, a poll showed that 70.6 percent of Panamanians approved of the expansion. But recent
controversy over social security has undermined support for the purportedly reform-minded president, Martin
Torrijos.
Like the 60 former communities now buried by Lake Gatún, the people in El Harino are being asked to
sacrifice their lands for the good of the country. Faced with this prospect, they are planning massive protests
in Panama City. Aiding in the battle is Cáritas Panamá, a Catholic organization dedicated to
mobilizing Panama's poor.
"The struggle is just starting," said coffee and rice grower Agustín Seledón.
Cáritas director Hector Endara sounds a dire warning. "If the ACP continues this way," he said, "it
could result in violence."
PANAMA CANAL TIMELINE
1848: Discovery of gold in California makes Panama an important route between the eastern United States
and California.
1855: New York investors complete a railroad across the isthmus, linking Colon on the Atlantic side to
Panama City on the Pacific side.
1878: Colombia, of which Panama is a province, grants a French adventurer the right to build a canal
across Panama. He sells it to a French company headed by Ferdinand Marie de Lesseps, who had directed
construction of the Suez Canal. Mired in mismanagement, the French effort to build a sea-level canal fails.
1903: Questionable treaty gives U.S. permission to cut canal in Panama; the U.S. helps stage coup to
separate Panama from Colombia. New design necessitates damming of Chagres River to create an inland lake
from which water can spill to lift ships from ocean to lake level.
1903-1914: Thousands of people are displaced and thousands of workers, many Chinese and West Indian,
die of diseases during construction.
1914: Completion of canal cuts 7,800 miles from New York-San Francisco sail. Previous distance: 13,000
miles.
1999: Canal Zone handed back to Panama.
2005: Election planned to seek popular approval for canal expansion.
Plan would flood communities, affecting 135K people
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Tucson Citizen
Business
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Araceli Masterson and Laura Eichelberger
Plan would flood communities, affecting 135K people
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