The lack of water is the main reason that has caused a collapse in the Panama Canal, with 133 ships still waiting to cross on Friday -65 with a reservation and 68 without it-, and when a threat to international trade flies over, since any congestion in the main routes of transit is usually reflected later in disruptions in the supply chains, lack of materials and, ultimately, higher prices.
The water saving measures applied to date range from the reduction of the draft (the height that the surface of the water reaches above the bottom) and the daily transits of vessels allowed, but the Canal Authority needs, in addition to these patches, long-term measures that guarantee the resource in a scenario of growth of both the road business and the Panamanian population, both dependent on the same water sources.
Since last July 30, and until further notice, the number of vessels that can cross the canal per day has been limited to 32, compared to a maximum of 38 that were previously authorized, while the draft has dropped from 50 to 44 feet , as EFE recalls. They are measures to “save and try to fill the reservoirs to survive the entire 2024 dry season”, which is expected to be strong given the influence of El Niño (increase in air temperature and decrease in relative humidity), as explained this Friday. the ACP Water Manager, Erick Córdoba, during a radio interview with Panamá en Directo collected by EFE.
Córdoba pointed out that the Panama Canal, an important world trade route that moves between 500 and 510 million tons of cargo each year, manages this congestion with modifications to its reservation system, and that the restrictive measures do not affect the expansion since that “maintain their usual average of 10 daily transits”.
The dry season in Panama runs from December to April, but this 2023 has lasted until late May. This caused the artificial lakes of Gatún (1913) and Alhajuela (1935), which supply the Canal and nearly 60% of the country’s population, to drop to critical levels.
Another problem is that the typical rains of the time have not fallen in the basin of the interoceanic highway. “Alhajuela is projected to reach its maximum level at the end of the year, but Gatún, with the volume of vessel traffic, added to drinking water (for human consumption) I do not think we will fill it,” said Córdoba. They not only affect the supply of water from the interoceanic canal the climatic variation, since it rains less during the long Panamanian winter, or the influence of El Niño, which has been extreme in 1982-1983, in 1997-1998 and in 2015-2016, and is expected to be moderate this 2023-2024. Beyond the weather, “the issue is that each year with the growth of the population, the growth of trade, the business of the Canal, which is the transit of ships, the use of water will continue to increase (…) it is not sustainable growth under current conditions,” said Córdoba.
The Water Manager said that the Panama Canal is studying how to maximize the saving capacity of the lock basins and is “retaking, once again, the studies of the Río Indio, which is the neighboring basin to the west of the Canal, in order to specify some kind of water addition project.” He also “has other studies of evaluations of neighboring basins”, because it is about “taking advantage of the water of the rivers that are flowing towards the sea”, he added.
In this sense, the former administrator of the Authority, Jorge Quijano (2012-2019), told EFE that “there are proposals” ready for several years for the creation of a new water reserve and that they must be executed “immediately”. .
“Not only is it a matter of the meteorological situation that we are experiencing at the moment, but other actions must be taken, because the two reservoirs, one is 110 years old and the other 88, are not enough,” argued Quijano, who inaugurated the expansion in June 2016 with a draft of “43 feet”, as he recalled, due to El Niño.
So, “another additional source of water is needed to be able to supply both the population, which is the first thing, and the Canal, which is a good business and needs the reliability of water to be able to continue transiting more” ships, he maintains.