Growing Old At Fifty MUST THE PANAMA CANAL BE DUPLICATED SHORTLY?

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30529, 26 August 1964, Page 16

Growing Old At Fifty MUST THE PANAMA CANAL BE DUPLICATED SHORTLY?

[By the United Stotee staff of the "Financial Time«”J (Reprinted by arranpement) Just 50 years ago this month, the Ancona sailed out into the Pacific Ocean to become the first, ship to have navigated the newly-opened Panama Canal. Still regarded as a brilliant engineering feat, the canal cost 380 million dollars tobuild and has since carried more than a third of a million seagoing vessels across its giant locks. Even today, it has taken the development of nuclear explosives and, ’more recently, a political flare-up in Panama to prompt the United States to examine the economic and strategic merits of a second, sea-level waterway linking the Caribbean with the Pacific.

Modifications carried out over the years have already resulted in the excavation of as much earth as was moved to cut the original canal. They have brought, too, modem lighting to improve night-time navigation and installation of electronic equipment to permit more efficient scheduling of ships. In addition, a 60 ■million dollar project is currently under way for widening the Gaillard Cut, the narrowest section of the canal crossing the Cdqtlnental divide. When completed, this programme will allow twoway navigation for the first time along this elght-mile stretch of the waterway. Ships Too Large In spite of the improvements, however, concern has been growing of late that the canal may not have sufficient potential capacity to cope with future traffic expansion. Over the last eight years alone, cargo tonnage carried across the canal has risen more than 50 per cent, while 24 ships of the U.S. Navy and another 50 commercial vessels, mostly super oiltankers, are too large to navigate its channel. Only by rebuilding at vast expense the canal’s existing locks, could the Panama Canal Company make it capable of handling the biggest ships, and questions have inevitably been asked whether money might not best be spent on constructing a second canal. So far, no less than 37 prospective routes have been considered for a new waterway. These have centred on five basic locations—one across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in Mexico; another along the frontier between Nicaragua and Costa Rica; two across Panama, but east of the existing canal; and a fifth in Colombia close to that country’s border with Panama. Although building costs for a sea-level canal by conventional methods—ranging from 5000 million dollars to 13,000 million dollars according to route—have long been considered too exorbitant to merit serious consideration, the recent development of nuclear explosives has. promised to alter the picture completely. The idea of using atomic science in canal construction was first, mentioned in the aftermath of the 1956 Suez

crisis. At that time studies were launched to consider using nuclear explosives to cut a new canal across Israel, and out of them the United States Atomic Energy Commission’s Project Plowshare, was born. But Project Rowshare, although intended to develop peaceful applications for atomic explosives, immediately aroused suspicions in Russia that it might become a cover for weapons testing. Work cm the project was seriously impeded by the moratorium on nuclear tests after 1961 and, even now, it is feared that experiments with atomic explosives for canal-cutting purposes may not be permitted under last year’s nuclear test ban treaty. The United States, nevertheless, has continued its. studies and, in a comprehensive report to Congress in 1960, it was indicated that a sea-level canal, cut by nuclear explosives, could be built, according to route, for any-

thing from 620 million dollars to 2300 million dollars. Subsequently, the Atomic Energy Commission conducted an important landshifting test in the Nevada desert which suggested that earlier estimates about both explosives’ costs and radioactive "fall-out” were exaggerated. As a result, it is npw reckoned that a new canal could be dug for as little as 500 million dollars—or potentially less than would be needed to build, by conventional methods, an additional set of locks for handling traffic along the Panama Canal. Persuading Russia These gains have already aroused speculation about America’s chances of persuading the Russians to accept appropriate amendments to the nuclear test ban treaty; but other issues remain to be

settled before a start can be made on a new canal. While, for instance, some experts argue that the Panama Canal will have become incapable of handling traffic growth 10 years from now, others contend that further modifications will provide sufficient capacity at least until the beginning of the next century. At the same time, it has been noted that the strategic value of the canal to the United States may have declined as the American Navy has become equipped with large fleets for both the Pacific and the Atlantic; and that problems associated with the growth of super-tankers could perhaps be overcome if an oil pipeline were laid across the Isthmus of Panama.

There are, too, political nerves to be soothed before a new canal can be built On the one hand, the Mexican Government indicated a few months ago that a Mexican canal would have to be built with Mexican capital and that available resources are currently committed elsewhere. On the other hand, any move by the United States to build a second canal outside Panama might easily aggrieve the Panamanian Government which receives an annuity of almost 2 million dollars a year from the canal as well as employment for Panamanian residents. Studies Begun For all these difficulties, last winter’s Panama crisis—which centred on United States control of the Panama .Canal Zone sufficiently troubled the Johnson Administration to provoke a statement that "a combination of economic, political and strategic considerations makes it highly desirable to proceed with necessary studies” for constructing a second sealevel canal. And, soon after, the. Administration sent off a team of experts to Colombia to survey areas that might be suitable for a canal. Several years, of course, would have to elapse for surveys to be completed, for future tests of nuclear explosives and for an arsenal of these explosives to be built up. But by the time the Panama Canal reaches its 100th birthday it could find itself with a growing brother.