Mar 1, 2007 12:00 PM

A New Panama Canal

The Panama Canal — 50 miles long, a conduit for more than 226 million tons of goods every year — is too damn small. The latest cargo ships can’t fit into its locks, and those that can squeeze in must sometimes idle offshore for weeks stuck in traffic. Shippers pay the price in increased operating […]

The Panama Canal — 50 miles long, a conduit for more than 226 million tons of goods every year — is too damn small. The latest cargo ships can’t fit into its locks, and those that can squeeze in must sometimes idle offshore for weeks stuck in traffic. Shippers pay the price in increased operating expenses, Panama in lost fees. The solution: a $5.3 billion expansion project approved by Panamanian voters last fall. This year, the Panama Canal Authority will start to widen and deepen the existing passage and add third lanes to the Atlantic and Pacific locks, sized to hold gi-normous Post-Panamax vessels. It will also dredge a deeper route through Gatún Lake, the highest point in the canal system. Capacity should double, annual toll revenue should rise from $1 billion to $6 billion, and if all goes as planned the job will wrap up just after the waterway's 100th anniversary in 2014. — C. J. Schnexnayder

Building New Locks and Basins

1 Each passage through the existing locks uses 55 million gallons of Gatún Lake water, which then gets dumped into the ocean.

2 New basins alongside the new locks will recycle 60 percent of that water—easing demands on the lake, Panama City's main source of water.

3 The new locks will be large enough to accommodate Post-Panamax ships, which carry almost three times as much as Panamax vessels.

4 The gates on the third-channel locks will slide like pocket doors. With two on each side, the canal authority can take one offline for repairs and still keep traffic moving.

Dredging New Channels

5 The first major component of the project, excavation of the third channel just beyond the southern locks, is slated to begin in 2007.

6 New channels and locks mean the existing canal and approaches to Gatún Lake have to be modernized as well. That'll take dredging, dryland excavating, and underwater blasting.

7 The dredgers Rialto M. Christensen and Mindi — two of the largest in the world — can excavate a combined 106 million cubic feet of earth each year. These machines are warhorses — the Mindi was commissioned in 1943.

Rialto M. Christensen

Dipper dredge

Commissioned: 1977

Initial cost: $5.3 million

Factoid: Has a fleet of five barges to transport material ashore.

Mindi

Cutter suction dredge

Commissioned: 1943

Initial cost: $7 million

Factoid: Can deposit suctioned material up to 12,000 feet away.

Moving the Traffic

The third channel will complete work started by the US in 1939, abandoned when WWII started.

On average, 38 ships pass through the canal every day — 24 slots are reserved in advance, one is auctioned off, and the rest go to ships in the queue.

More than 14,000 vessels traveled through the canal in 2006 — that's $1 billion in tolls.

Cargo Ships