Panama at a new watershed.

• Author: Greenquist, Eric A.
• Position: Panama Canal maintenance and the environment

This country faces complex challenges, as it prepares to assume full responsibility for one of the world's busiest trade routes within a fragile ecosystem

Elihu Root called Panama "that graveyard of reputations." As the man Theodore Roosevelt, first chose to direct the building of a canal, Root had reason to be cynical. The French effort in Panama had ended in a scandal of greed and deceit that had ruined men such as Ferdinand de Lesseps, builder of the Suez Canal, Gustave Eiffel, engineer of the Eiffel Tower, and four-time French premier Charles de Freycinet. Graveyards, however, did not worry Roosevelt. In 1904 he began what would become the greatest engineering feat of its day. The Panama Canal required hundreds of technical innovations and its three locks became the largest machines ever built.

Still, the isthmus did not yield easily to human invention. Accidents and disease claimed as many as twenty-five thousand lives under the French and fifty-six hundred under the Americans. Panama's landscape was as deadly as it was alluring. And the dreams of nations to cross and control that landscape gave Panama a history both glorious and tragic.

On December 31, 1999, that history will begin a new chapter. On that day, under the 1977 Panama Canal treaties, the United States will relinquish its last authority over the 648-square-mile Canal Zone. Panama, for the first time, will accept sole responsibility for the canal.

In some respects, this transfer comes at a critical time. Serious environmental problems hinder canal operations and threaten to close the canal completely. Twenty percent of Panama's gross domestic product is tied to canal operations, and even a temporary loss of canal operations could cause serious financial losses for the world trading community.

To protect the canal, three years ago Panama mobilized a cadre of experienced professionals to complete an unprecedented program of land-use plan and consensus building. Success came early last year as twenty-eight government agencies and private organizations accepted the strategy developed by these specialists for the use and protection of the lands surrounding the canal. This was a major first step toward ensuring long-term operation of the canal.

Many steps remain. To maintain the canal, years of environmental damage must be reversed. History and landscape have opened a crypt in the graveyard of reputations, and the battle is on for Panamanians to secure their future.

The Panama Canal is the crossroads of the Western Hemisphere and the economic heart of Panama. More than fourteen thousand ships pass through the canal each year, saving seventy-nine hundred miles from a trip around Cape Horn and more than US$100,000 per cargo in shipping costs. Last year the canal generated $374 million in tolls. Of these, Panama received more than $80 million in revenue and $200 million in salaries paid to Panamanians employed by the Panama Canal Commission, an agency of the U.S. government.

The five-hundred-foot-wide canal, however, is surprisingly vulnerable to nearby land uses. Eighty-five feet above sea level, the canal needs a daily inflow of 1.6 billion gallons of fresh water to fill and operate its locks. This water comes from the surrounding 806,000-acre watershed. Human settlement of this watershed, though, threatens the water supply needed to operate the canal.

Located between Panama's two largest cities, Panama City and Colon, the watershed has grown in population from fewer than 20,000 persons in 1950 to 143,000 in 1990. The steep slopes and lateritic soils of the watershed, however, make it poorly suited for such habitation. Almost 70 percent of the land is on slopes of 45 degrees or greater. Soil-capability surveys...