The Creation of the Panama Canal

In 1825, a group of American businessmen announced the formation of a new canal building company, with interests in constructing the first canal system across the Isthmus. This project was to take place in an area that we now called Panama. The endeavor was filled with controversy. Though the canal itself was not built until the early 1900's every step toward the building and ownership, was saturated with difficulty. The construction of the canal would not be easy, the French made an attempt and failed.

Workers had to deal with mosquito infestation, terrible mud slides, and also the malaria virus.

In 1878 Ferdinand de Lesseps, the French engineer who built the Suez canal began work on a canal, on the same site as todays Panama Canal. The outbreak of tropical disease and engineering problems soon halted all construction on the canal, but a French business still held the rights to the project. The United states acquired the rights to the area for a payment of 40 million dollars to the French, and 10 million to the Panamanians, and also a guarantee for Panamas independence.

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Soon after America had full control of what is today called the "canal zone", President Roosevelt ordered thousands of army workers to begin work on the canal, and realized that this would be no easy task.

The Panama Canal joins the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. It runs from Cristobal on Lemon bay, a part of the Caribbean sea, to Balboa, on the Gulf of Panama. The canal is slightly more than 64 km long, and this does not include the dredged approach channels at either end.

It takes about 9 days to complete the journey through all 51 miles of the canal, but on a trip from New York Harbor to San Francisco Bay, the Panama Canal can save a ship the 18,000 miles it would normally take to sail all the way around South America. The minimum depth of the canal is 12.5 m during most of the year, and the minimum width is 91.5 m.

A trip along the canal from its Atlantic entrance would take you through a 7 mile dredged channel in Lemon Bay. The canal then travels for a distance of 11.5 miles to the Gatun Locks. This series of three locks raise ships 26 meters to what is called Gatun Lake. It continues south through a channel in Gatun Lake for 32 miles to Gamboa, where the Culebra Cut begins. This channel through the cut is 8 miles long and 150 meters wide. At the end of this cut are the locks at Pedro Miguel. These locks lower the ships 9.4 meters to a lake which then takes you to the Miraflores Locks which lower ships 16 meters to sea level at the canals end in the bay of Panama.

The ships for which the canal was designed are now long gone. Modern shipping has increased the size of ships. The increase in the weight which can be carried has caused problems for the canal. The canal can only accommodate ships carrying up to 65,000 tons of cargo, but recently ships which are able to carry 300,000 tons have been introduced. The problem of the ever-increasing size in ships has caused discussion into the construction of a new canal joining the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. There have been discussions on three alternative routes for a new canal, through; Columbia, Mexico and Nicaragua. The Columbian and Mexican routes would allow for the construction of a sea level canal, whereas the Nicaraguan route would require a lock system.

If a replacement canal were to be constructed, the economic effect on the Republic of Panama would be a great concern as the present canal employs 14,000 people. It has been suggested that, if a new canal were to be built, the existing canal could be converted to a hydroelectric power station at a relatively small cost. As Panama has no iron-ore deposits and lacks oil, natural gas resources or skilled labor, there is no real need for a new source of cheap power. The capacity of the existing canal could be increased by converting it to a sea level passage. This would be carried out by the dredging of more than 765 million cubic meters of earth and rock which could be carried out without interfering with existing canal traffic.

Water retaining structures would be constructed to maintain the canal levels during excavation. When excavation had been completed, the water retaining structure would be demolished by blasting them into deep pits. The lowering of the canals level would take place over a seven day period and would be the only time traffic would be disrupted. It was suggested during the 1960's that the canal could be increased in size by the use of nuclear explosives and would cost less than one third, and take about half the time than using conventional excavation methods. It is now obvious that this would cause a great deal of concern for all anti-nuclear groups.

One of the biggest challenges of building the Panama Canal beside the actual construction was keeping the site clean and taking care of the Yellow Fever and Malaria. Recent medical discoveries from Havana, Cuba showed American doctors that Malaria was actually transmitted by mosquitoes. America sent surgeon general William Gorgas and his colleagues including Major Walter Reed, who were both involved in the Cuban Malaria studies. They solved the problem by building suitable housing for workers, which kept them shelters from the weather, and kept the surrounding area dry in order to stop the birth of new mosquitoes. By drying up the stagnant water pools, Americans were able to stop mosquitoes from reproducing and the Malaria and Yellow Fever problems soon ceased.

It is now easy to see that America never looked back once the project was started. Now that the Panama Canal was complete, the shipping of goods from coast to coast is easier than it has ever been. With the profit made from the American goods passing through, and the money Panama makes from the canals use, both countries are in great debt to the canal. Despite the Malaria, Mudslides, and Yellow fever, Americans fought to complete the canal and ever since, we are reaping the benefits of the project.