Conception
After the successful completion of the Suez Canal
in 1869, the French were inspired to tackle the apparently similar
project to connect the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and were confident
that this could be carried out with little difficulty. In 1876, an
international company, La Société internationale du Canal interocéanique,
was created to undertake the work; two years later, it
obtained
a concession from the Colombian government, which then controlled the
land, to dig a canal across the isthmus.
Ferdinand de Lesseps, who was in charge of the
construction of the Suez Canal, was the figurehead of the scheme. His
enthusiastic leadership, coupled with his reputation as the man who had
brought the Suez project to a successful conclusion, persuaded
speculators and ordinary citizens to invest in the scheme, ultimately to
the tune of almost $400 million.
However, de Lesseps, despite his previous success, was not an engineer.
The construction of the Suez Canal, essentially a ditch dug through a
flat, sandy desert, presented few challenges; but Panama was to be a
very different story.
The mountainous spine of Central America comes to
a low point at Panama, but still rises to a height of 110 meters (360.9
ft) above sea level at the lowest crossing point. A sea-level canal, as
proposed by de Lesseps, would require a prodigious excavation, and
through varied hardnesses of rock rather than the easy sand of Suez.
A less obvious barrier was presented by the rivers
crossing the canal, particularly the Chagres River, which flows very
strongly in the rainy season. This water could not simply be dumped into
the canal, as it would present an extreme hazard to shipping; and so a
sea-level canal would require the river, which cuts right across the
canal route, to be diverted.
The most serious problem of all, however, was tropical disease,
particularly malaria and yellow fever. Since it was not known at the
time how these diseases were contracted, any precautions against them
were doomed to failure. For example, the legs of the hospital beds were
placed in tins of water to keep insects from crawling up; but these pans
of stagnant water made ideal breeding places for mosquitoes, the
carriers of these two diseases, and so worsened the problem.
From the beginning, the project was plagued by a lack of engineering
expertise. In May 1879, an international engineering congress was
convened in Paris, with Ferdinand de Lesseps at its head; of the 136
delegates, however, only 42 were engineers, the others being made up of
speculators, politicians, and personal friends of de Lesseps. De
Lesseps was convinced that a sea-level canal, dug through the
mountainous, rocky spine of Central America, could be completed as
easily as, or even more easily than, the Suez Canal. The engineering
congress estimated the cost of the project at $214,000,000; on February
14, 1880, an engineering commission revised this estimate to
$168,600,000. De Lesseps twice reduced this estimate, with no apparent
justification; on February 20 to $131,600,000, and again on March 1 to
$120,000,000. The engineering congress estimated seven or eight years as
the time required to complete the work; de Lesseps reduced the time to
six years, as compared to the ten years required for the Suez Canal.
The proposed sea level canal was to have uniform depth of 9 meters (29.5
ft), a bottom width of 22 meters (72.2 ft), and a width at water level
of about 27.5 meters (90.2 ft), and involved excavation estimated at
120,000,000 m3 (157,000,000 cu yd). It was proposed that a dam be built
at Gamboa to control the flooding of the Chagres river, along with
channels to carry water away from the canal. However, the Gamboa dam was
later found to be impracticable, and the Chagres River problem was left
unresolved.
Construction begins
Construction of the canal began on January 1,
1882, though digging at Culebra did not begin until January 22, 1882. A
huge labor force was assembled; in 1888, this numbered about 20,000 men,
nine-tenths of these being afro-Caribbean workers from the West Indies.
Although extravagant rewards were given to French
engineers who joined the canal effort, the huge death toll from disease
made it difficult to retain them — they either left after short service,
or died. The total death toll between 1881 and 1889 was estimated at
over 22,000.
Even as early as 1885, it had become clear to many that a sea-level
canal was impractical, and that an elevated canal with locks was the
best answer; however, de Lesseps was stubborn, and it was not until
October 1887 that the lock canal plan was adopted.
By this time, however, the mounting financial,
engineering and mortality problems, coupled with frequent floods and
mudslides, were making it clear that the project was in serious trouble.
Work was pushed forward under the new plan until
May 1889, when the company became bankrupt, and work was finally
suspended on May 15, 1889. After eight years, the work was about
two-fifths completed, and some $234,795,000 had been spent.
The collapse of the company was a major scandal in
France, and the role of two Jewish speculators in the affair enabled
Edouard Drumont, an anti-semite, to exploit the matter. 104 legislators
were found to have been involved in the corruption and Jean Jaurès was
commissioned by the French parliament to conduct an inquiry into the
matter, completed in 1893.
New French Canal Company
It soon became clear that the only way to salvage
anything for the stockholders was to continue the project. A new
concession was obtained from Colombia, and in 1894 the Compagnie
Nouvelle du Canal de Panama was created to finish the construction. In
order to comply with the terms of the concession, work started
immediately on the Culebra excavation, which would be required under any
possible plans, while a team of competent engineers began a
comprehensive study of the project. The plan eventually settled on was
for a two-level, lock-based canal.
The new effort never really gathered momentum; the main reason for this
was the speculation by the United States over a canal built through
Nicaragua, which would render a Panama canal useless. The largest number
of men employed on the new project was 3,600, in 1896; this minimal
workforce was employed primarily to comply with the terms of the
concession and to maintain the existing excavation and equipment in
salable condition — the company had already started looking for a buyer,
with a price tag of $109,000,000.
Meanwhile, in the U.S., the Isthmian Canal Commission was established in
1899 to examine the possibilities of a Central American canal and to
recommend a route. In November 1901, the commission reported that a U.S.
canal should be built through Nicaragua unless the French were willing
to sell out at $40,000,000. This recommendation became a law on June 28,
1902, and the New Panama Canal Company was practically forced to sell
for that amount or get nothing.
The French achievement
Although the French effort was to a large extent
doomed to failure from the beginning, due to the unsolved disease issue,
and insufficient appreciation of the engineering difficulties, its work
was, nevertheless, not entirely wasted. Between the old and new
companies, the French in total excavated 59,747,638 m3 (78,146,960 cu
yd) of material, of which 14,255,890 m3 (18,646,000 cu yd) were taken
from the Culebra Cut. The old company dredged a channel from Panama Bay
to the port at Balboa; and the channel dredged on the Atlantic side,
known as the French canal, was found to be useful for bringing in sand
and stone for the locks and spillway concrete at Gatún. The detailed
surveys and studies, particularly those carried out by the new canal
company, were of great help to the later American effort; and
considerable machinery, including railroad equipment and vehicles, were
of great help in the early years of the American project. In all, it was
estimated that 22,713,396 m3 (29,708,000 cu yd) of excavation were of
direct use to the Americans, valued at $25,389,240, along with equipment
and surveys valued at $17,410,586.
Nicaragua
The discovery of gold in California in 1848 and
the rush of would-be miners stimulated U.S. interest in creating a canal
between the oceans. In 1887, a U.S. regiment went to survey canal
possibilities in Nicaragua. In 1889, the Maritime Canal Company was
asked to begin creating a canal in the area, and it chose Nicaragua. The
company lost its funding in 1893 as a result of a stock panic, and canal
work ceased in Nicaragua. In both 1897 and 1899, Congress charged a
Canal Commission to look into possible construction, and Nicaragua was
chosen as the location both times.
The Nicaraguan Canal proposal was finally made redundant by the American
takeover of the French Panama Canal project. However, the increase in
modern shipping, and the increasing sizes of ships, have revived
interest in the project; there are fresh proposals for either a
modern-day canal across Nicaragua capable of carrying post-Panamax
ships, or a rail link carrying containers between ports on either coast.
The United States and the canal
Theodore
Roosevelt, who became president of the United States in 1901, believed
that a U.S. controlled canal across Central America was a vital
strategic interest to the U.S. This idea gained wide impetus following
the destruction of the battleship USS Maine, in Cuba, on February 15,
1898.
The USS Oregon, a battleship stationed in San
Francisco, was dispatched to take her place, but the voyage around Cape
Horn took 67 days. Although she arrived in time to join in the Battle of
Santiago Bay, the voyage would have taken just three weeks via Panama.
Roosevelt was able to reverse a previous decision by the Walker
Commission in favor of a Nicaragua Canal, and pushed through the
acquisition of the French Panama Canal effort. George S. Morrison stood
alone on that commission for the Panama location and argued for the
change. Panama was then part of Colombia, so Roosevelt opened
negotiations with the Colombians to obtain the necessary rights.
In early 1903, the Hay-Herran Treaty was signed by
both nations, but the Colombian Senate failed to ratify the treaty. In a
controversial move, Roosevelt implied to Panamanian rebels that if they
revolted, the U.S. Navy would assist their cause for independence.
Panama proceeded to proclaim its independence on November 3, 1903, and
the USS Nashville in local waters impeded any interference from Colombia
(see gunboat diplomacy). The victorious Panamanians returned the favor
to Roosevelt by allowing the United States control of the Panama Canal
Zone on February 23, 1904, for US$10 million (as provided in the
Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty, signed on November 18, 1903).
The takeover
The United States formally took control of the
French property relating to the canal on May 4, 1904, when Lieutenant
Jatara Oneel of the United States Army was presented with the keys;
there was a small ceremony. The newly-created Panama Canal Zone Control
came under the control of the Isthmian Canal Commission during canal
construction.
Making sense of the task
The Americans had bought the canal essentially as
a running operation, and indeed the first step taken was to place all of
the canal workers in the employ of the new administration. However, this
was not as helpful to the project as it may have seemed, as the
operation was at that point being maintained at essentially minimum
strength, in order to comply with the canal's concession and keep the
plant in working order. The Americans therefore inherited a small
workforce, but also a great jumble of buildings, infrastructure and
equipment, much of which had been the victim of fifteen years of neglect
in the harsh, humid jungle environment. There were virtually no
facilities in place for a large workforce, and the infrastructure was
crumbling. The early years of American work therefore produced little in
terms of real progress, but were in many ways the most crucial and most
difficult of the project.
The task of cataloguing the assets was a huge one; it took many weeks
simply to card-index the available equipment. 2,148 buildings had been
acquired, many of which were completely uninhabitable, and housing was
at first a significant problem. The Panama Railway was in a severe state
of decay. Still, there was a great deal that was of significant use;
many locomotives, dredges and other pieces of floating equipment were
put to good use by the Americans throughout their construction effort.
John Findley Wallace was elected chief engineer of the canal on 6 May
1904, and immediately came under pressure to "make the dirt fly".
However, the initial over-bureaucratic oversight from Washington stifled
his efforts to get large forces of heavy equipment in place rapidly, and
caused a great deal of friction between Wallace and the commission. Both
Wallace and the chief sanitary officer, William C. Gorgas, determined to
make great strides as rapidly as possible, found themselves frustrated
by delay and red tape at every turn; finally, in 1905, Wallace resigned.
Setting the course
Wallace
was replaced as chief engineer by John Frank Stevens, who arrived on the
isthmus on July 26, 1905. Stevens rapidly realised that a serious
investment in infrastructure was necessary, and set to upgrading the
railway, improving sanitation in the cities of Panamá and Colón,
remodelling all of the old French buildings, and building hundreds of
new ones to provide housing. He then undertook the task of recruiting
the huge labor force required for the building of the canal. Given the
unsavory reputation of Panama by this time, this was a difficult task,
but recruiting agents were dispatched to the West Indies, to Italy, and
to Spain, and a supply of workers was soon arriving at the isthmus. Like
Wallace before him, Stevens found the red tape vexing; but his approach
was to press ahead anyway, and get approval later. He improved the
drilling and dirt removal equipment at the Culebra Cut, with a great
improvement in efficiency. He also revised the inadequate provisions for
the disposal of the vast quantities of soil that were to be excavated.
Even at this date, no decision had been taken regarding whether the
canal should be a lock canal or a sea-level canal, the excavation that
was under way would be useful in either case. Towards the end of 1905,
President Roosevelt sent a team of engineers to Panama to investigate
the relative merits of both schemes, as regards their costs and time
requirements. The engineers decided in favor of a sea-level canal, by a
vote of eight to five; but the Canal Commission, and Stevens himself,
opposed this scheme, and Stevens' report to Roosevelt was instrumental
in convincing the president of the merits of a lock-based scheme. The
Senate and house of Representatives ratified the lock-based scheme, and
work was free to formally continue under this plan. In November 1906,
Roosevelt visited Panama to inspect the canal's progress. This was the
first trip outside the United States by a sitting President.
Another controversy from this time was whether the canal work should be
carried out by contractors, or by the U.S. government itself. Opinions
were strongly divided, but Stevens eventually came to favor the direct
approach, and this was the one finally adopted by Roosevelt. However,
Roosevelt also decided that army engineers should carry out the work,
and appointed Major George Washington Goethals as chief engineer under
the direction of Stevens in February 1907. Stevens was already
frustrated by the administrative situation, and the decision to involve
the army at this level may have been the last straw; in any case, he
resigned, and was replaced by Goethals.
Living conditions
The Canal Zone originally had very minimal
facilities for entertainment and relaxation for the canal workers,
except the saloons; as a result, the men drank heavily largely because
there was nothing else to do, and drunkenness was a great problem. The
generally unfriendly conditions resulted in many American workers
returning home each year.
It was clear that conditions had to be improved if the project was to
succeed; so a program of improvements was put in place. To begin with, a
number of clubhouses were built, managed by the YMCA, which contained
billiard rooms, an assembly room, a reading room, bowling alleys, dark
rooms for the camera clubs, gymnastic equipment, an ice cream parlor and
soda fountain, and a circulating library. The members' dues were only
ten dollars a year; the remaining deficit (of about $7,000, at the
larger clubhouses) was paid by the Commission. Baseball grounds were
built by the commission, and special trains were laid on to take people
to matches; a very competitive league soon developed. Fortnightly
Saturday night dances were held at the Hotel Tivoli, which had a
spacious ballroom. These measures had a marked influence on life in the
Canal Zone; drunkenness fell off sharply, and the saloon trade dropped
by sixty per cent. Crucially, the number of workers leaving the project
each year dropped significantly.
Construction in earnest
The
work that had been done to this point was unimpressive in terms of
actual construction, but in terms of preparation, absolutely essential.
By the time Goethals took over, all of the infrastructure for the
construction had been created, or at least greatly overhauled and
expanded from the original French effort, which eased his task
considerably; and he was soon able to start making real progress with
the construction effort. He divided the project into three divisions:
Atlantic, Central and Pacific.
* The Atlantic division, under Major William L. Sibert, was responsible
for construction of the massive breakwater at the entrance to Limon Bay,
the Gatun locks and their 5.6 km (3.5 mile) approach channel, and the
immense Gatun Dam.
* The Pacific Division, under Sydney B. Williamson (the only civilian
member of this high-level team), was similarly responsible for the
Pacific entrance to the canal, including a 4.8 km (3 mile) breakwater in
Panama Bay, the approach channel, and the Miraflores and Pedro Miguel
locks and their associated dams.
* The Central division, under Major David du Bose Gaillard, was
responsible for everything in between; in particular, it had arguably
the greatest challenge of the whole project — the excavation of the
Gaillard Cut, one of the greatest engineering tasks of its time, which
involved cutting 8 miles (13 km) through the continental divide down to
a level 12 metres (40 ft) above sea level.
By August 1907, 765,000 m³ (1,000,000 cubic yards) per month was being
excavated, which was a record for the difficult rainy season; not long
after, this was doubled, and then increased again; at the peak of
productivity, 2,300,000 m³ (3,000,000 cubic yards) were being excavated
per month (in terms of pure excavation, this is equivalent to digging a
Channel Tunnel every 3½ months!). Never in the history of construction
work had so much material been removed so quickly.
The Gaillard Cut
One
of the greatest barriers to a canal was the continental divide, which
originally rose to 110 metres (360.9 ft) above sea level at its highest
point; the effort to create a cut through this barrier of rock was
clearly one of the greatest challenges faced by the project, and indeed
gave rise to one of the greatest engineering feats of its time.
When Goethals arrived at the canal he had brought with him Major David
du Bose Gaillard, of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Gaillard was
placed in charge of the central district of the canal, which stretched
from Pedro Miguel Locks to the Gatun Dam, and dedicated himself to the
job of getting the Culebra Cut, as it was then known, excavated.
The scale of the work was massive: six thousand men worked in the cut,
drilling holes in which were placed a total of 27,000 t (60,000,000 lb)
of dynamite to break up the rock, which was then taken away by as many
as 160 trains in a day. Landslides were a frequent and major problem,
due to the oxidation and weakening of the underlying iron strata in the
rock. The scale of the job, and the frequent unpredictable slides,
tended towards chaos; but Gaillard overcame the difficulties with quiet,
clear-sighted leadership.
On May 20, 1913, steam shovels made a passage through the Culebra Cut at
the level of the canal bottom. The French effort had reduced the summit
to 59 metres (193.6 ft), but over a relatively narrow width; the
Americans had lowered this to 12 metres (39.4 ft) above sea level, over
a much greater width, and had excavated over 76,000,000 m3 (99,000,000
cu yd) of material. Some 23,000,000 m3 (30,000,000 cu yd) of this
material was additional to the planned excavation, having been brought
into the cut by the landslides. Dry excavation ended on September 10,
1913; a slide in January had brought1,500,000 m3 (2,000,000 cu yd) of
earth into the cut, but it was decided that this loose material would be
removed by dredging once the cut was flooded.
The dams
Two
artificial lakes form key parts of the canal; Lake Gatun and Miraflores
Lake. Four dams were constructed to create these lakes:
* two small dams at Miraflores impound Miraflores Lake;
* a dam at Pedro Miguel encloses the south end of the Gaillard Cut,
which is essentially an arm of Lake Gatun;
* the Gatun Dam is the main dam blocking the original course of the
Chagres River and creating Lake Gatun.
The two dams at Miraflores are an earth dam, 825 metres (2,707 ft) long,
connecting with Miraflores Locks from the west, and a concrete spillway
dam 150 metres (492 ft) long to the east of the locks. The concrete east
dam has eight regulating gates similar to those on the Gatun Spillway.
The dam at Pedro Miguel is of earth, and is 430 metres (1,411 ft) long,
extending from a hill on the west to the lock. The face of the dam is
protected by rock riprap at the water level.
By far the largest of the dams, and by far the most demanding, was the
Gatun Dam, which created and impounds Lake Gatun. This huge earthen dam,
which is 640 metres (2,100 ft) thick at the base and 2,300 metres (7,546
ft) long along the top, was the largest of its kind in the world when
the canal opened.
The locks
The project of building the locks began with the
first concrete laid at Gatun, on August 24, 1909. The locks at Gatun are
built into a cutting made in a hill bordering the lake, which required
the excavation of 3,800,000 m3 (4,970,212 cu yd) of material, mostly
rock. The locks themselves were made of 1,564,400 m3 (2,046,158 cu yd)
of concrete; an extensive system of electric railways and overhead
cableways were used to transport concrete into the lock construction
sites.
The Pacific-side locks were finished first; the single flight at Pedro
Miguel in 1911 and Miraflores in May 1913. The seagoing tug Gatun, an
Atlantic entrance working tug used for hauling barges, had the honor on
September 26, 1913, of making the first trial lockage of Gatun Locks.
The lockage went perfectly, although all valves were controlled manually
since the central control board was still not ready.
Opening
On October 10, 1913, the dike at Gamboa, which had
kept the Culebra Cut isolated from Gatun Lake, was demolished; the
initial detonation was set off telegraphically by President Woodrow
Wilson in Washington. On January 7, 1914, the Alexandre La Valley,
an
old French crane boat, became the first ship to make a complete transit
of the Panama Canal under its own steam.
As construction tailed off, the canal team began to disperse. Thousands
of workers were laid off; entire towns were either disassembled or
demolished. Gorgas left to help fight pneumonia in the South African
gold mines, and went on to become surgeon general of the Army. On April
1, 1914, the Isthmian Canal Commission ceased to exist and the zone came
under a new Canal Zone Governor; the first holder of this office was
Colonel Goethals.
A grand celebration was originally planned for the official opening of
the canal, as befits so great an effort which had aroused strong
feelings in the United States for many years. However, the great opening
never occurred. The outbreak of World War I forced cancellation of the
main festivities, and the grand opening became a modest local affair.
The Canal cement boat Ancon, piloted by Captain John A. Constantine, the
Canal's first pilot, made the first official transit of the canal on
August 15, 1914. There were no international dignitaries in attendance;
Goethals followed the Ancon's progress from shore, by railroad.
Taking stock of the project
When the canal opened, it was a technological
marvel. The canal was an important strategic and economic asset to the
U.S., and revolutionised world shipping patterns; the opening of the
canal removed the need for ships to travel the long and dangerous route
via the Drake Passage and Cape Horn (at the southernmost tip of South
America). The canal saves a total of about 7,800 miles (12,500 km) on a
trip from New York to San Francisco by sea.
The
anticipated military significance of the canal was proven in World War
II, when the United States used the canal to help revitalize their
devastated Pacific Fleet.
Some of the largest ships the United States had to
send through the canal were aircraft carriers, in particular the Essex
class.
These were so large that, although the locks could
hold them, the lamp-posts that lined the canal had to be removed.
The Panama Canal cost the United States around $375,000,000, including
the $10,000,000 paid to Panama and the $40,000,000 paid to the French
company. It was the single most expensive construction project in United
States history to that time; remarkably, however, it was actually some
$23,000,000 below the 1907 estimate, in spite of landslides and a design
change to a wider canal. An additional $12,000,000 was spent on
fortifications.
More than 75,000 men and women worked on the project in total; at the
height of construction, there were 40,000 workers working on it.
According to hospital records, 5,609 workers died from disease and
accidents during the American construction era.
A total of 182,610,550 m3 (238,845,582 cu yd) of material were excavated
in the American effort, including the approach channels at both ends of
the canal. Adding the work inherited from the French, the total
excavation required by the canal was around 204,900,000 m3 (268,000,000
cu yd). This is equivalent to over 25 times the excavation done in the
Channel Tunnel project.
Of the three presidents whose periods in office
span the construction period, the name of President Roosevelt is often
the one most associated with the canal, and Woodrow Wilson was the
president who presided over its opening. However, it may have been
Howard Taft who gave the greatest personal impetus to the canal over the
longest period. Taft visited Panama five times as Roosevelt's Secretary
of War, and twice as President. He also hired John Stevens, and later
recommended Goethals as his replacement. Taft became president in 1909,
when canal construction was only at the halfway mark, and remained in
office for most of the remainder of the work. However, Goethals later
wrote "The real builder of the Panama Canal was Theodore Roosevelt".
The following words of Theodore Roosevelt are displayed in the Rotunda
of the Administration Building:
"It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the
strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done them
better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena;
whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly,
who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great
enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause;
who, at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and
who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so
that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know
neither victory nor defeat."
David du Bose Gaillard died from a brain tumor in Baltimore, on December
5, 1913, aged 54, having been promoted to colonel only a month before,
and so never saw the opening of the great man-made valley whose creation
he directed. The Culebra Cut, as it was originally known, was renamed to
the Gaillard Cut on April 27, 1915, in his honor. A plaque commemorating
his work stood over the cut for many years; in 1998 it was moved to the
Administration Building in Balboa, close to the Goethals Memorial.
The Third Locks Scheme
As the situation in Europe deteriorated in the
late-1930s, the USA began to be concerned once more about its ability to
move warships between the oceans. The largest U.S. battleships were
already so large as to have problems with the canal locks; and
there were concerns about the locks being put out of action by enemy
bombing. These concerns led the U.S. Congress to pass a resolution
authorising a study into improving the canal's defenses against attack,
and into expanding the capacity of the canal to handle large vessels.
This resolution was passed on May 1, 1936, and a Special Engineering
Section was created by the on July 1, 1937, to carry out the study.
A report was made to Congress on February 24, 1939, recommending that
work be carried out to protect the existing lock structures, and to
construct a new set of locks capable of carrying larger vessels than the
existing locks could accommodate. On August 11, 1939, Congress
authorised work to begin.
The plan was to build three new locks, at Gatún, Pedro Miguel, and
Miraflores, in parallel with the existing locks, and served by new
approach channels. The new locks would add a single traffic lane to the
canal, with each chamber being 1,200 ft (365.76 m) long, 140 ft (42.67
m) wide, and 45 ft (13.72 m) deep. The new locks would be 1⁄2 mi (805 m)
to the east of the existing Gatún locks, and 1⁄4 mi (402 m) to the west
of the existing Pedro Miguel and Miraflores locks.
The first excavations for the new approach channels at Miraflores began
on July 1, 1940, following the passage by Congress of the Appropriation
Act on June 24, 1940. The first dry excavation at Gatún began on
February 19, 1941. A considerable amount of material was excavated
before the project was finally abandoned; the new approach channels can
still be seen in parallel to the original channels at Gatún and
Miraflore.
Canal handover
After construction, the canal
and the Canal Zone surrounding it were administered by the United
States. On 7 September 1977, U.S. President Jimmy Carter signed the
Torrijos-Carter Treaty, which set in motion the process of handing
over the canal to Panamanian control. The treaty came into force on
31 December 1999, since then the canal has been run by the Panama
Canal Authority or the Autoridad de Canal de Panama ( the ACP).
The treaty was highly controversial in the U.S., and its passage was
difficult. The controversy was largely caused by contracts to manage
two ports at either end of the canal, which were awarded by Panama
to a Hong Kong-based conglomerate, Hutchison Whampoa. Republicans
contend that the company has close ties to the Chinese government
and the Chinese military. However, the U.S. State Department says it
has found no evidence of connections between Hutchison Whampoa and
Beijing. Some Americans were also wary of placing this strategic
waterway under the protection of the Panamanian security force.
There
was some concern in the U.S. and in the shipping industry for the
Canal after the handover. But opponents of the Torrijos-Carter
Treaties turned out to be wrong. On virtually all counts, Panama is
doing extremely well:
* The Panama Canal's income has soared from USD$769 million in 2000,
the first year under Panamanian control, to USD$1.4 billion in 2006,
according to Panama Canal Authority figures.
* Traffic through the canal went up from 230 million tons in 2000 to
nearly 300 million tons in 2006;
* The number of accidents has gone down from an average of 28 per
year in the late 1990s to 12 accidents in 2005;
* The average transit time through the canal is averaging about 30
hours, about the same as in the late-1990s;
* Canal expenses have increased much less than revenues over the
past six years from USD$427 million in 2000 to USD$497 million in
2006.
* On October 22, 2006, after many studies made by the agency,
Panamanian citizens approved by a wide margin on a referendum a
project to expand the Panama Canal.
Former U.S. Ambassador to Panama Linda Watt, who served in Panama
from 2002 to 2005, said that the canal operation under Panamanian
hands has been "outstanding." She added, "The international shipping
community is quite pleased."
Panama Canal expansion
In
2006, by popular referendum, 75 percent of Panamanians voted to
expand the Panama Canal to include a third lane. The third lane will
allow much wider and longer vessels to pass through, doubling canal
capacity and markedly improving trade efficiency.
The expansion project broke
ground on September 3, 2007 and is being managed by the 9,000 person
Panama Canal Authority (ACP), which has run the
canal since operations were transferred to Panama by the United
States. The project carries a hefty price tag of $5.25 billion to
widen the Panama Canal to increase its capacity. Many tankers
are too large for the 50-mile (80km) route and the modernisation is
vital to maintain trade. To date 60 contracts worth more than
$296 million dollars have been awarded for services, consultants,
and construction.
Funding
for the project is being made available from various sources; $2.3
billion in financing obtained from five international lenders - the
European Investment Bank, the Japan Bank for International
Cooperation, the Inter-American Development Bank and the Andean
Development Corp. The balance will come from canal revenue.
The Wall Street Journal reports that canal revenue for the FY 2009,
which ends on September 30th, will reach $2 billion. This amount is
similar to that of fiscal 2008, even though tonnage may fall by 5
percent reflecting the global economic downturn.
The on-budget, on-schedule
full canal expansion is expected to be complete by 2014. The
efficiency of today’s project stands in sharp contrast to the
pre-1906 debacle, when a lack of coordination and poor logistics led
to canal cost overruns, major delays and dangerous working
conditions. In fact, 30 percent of the expansion program financing
is for contingencies.
Approximately 5 percent of global trade passes through the Panama
Canal, with 13,000 to 14,000 vessels using it 24 hours a day, 365
days a year, without regard to vessels’ national origin.
