Panama Canal 2.0: Colorado's MWH plays key role in waterway expansion.

• Author: Sukin, Gigi
• Position: INTERNATIONAL

TUCKED AWAY IN the Denver suburb of Broomfield is an international engineering firm leading the expansion of the Panama Canal, a man-made waterway now 100 years old but still considered one of the world's great engineering feats.

MWH Global, which employs about 600 in Colorado, won the contract to serve as design lead for the canal's expansion in 2009. The estimated $5.25 billion project will open the canal to ships that are up to three times the size current capacity allows.

When it opened in August 1914, the canal connected the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean via the Caribbean Sea and provided a safer route to the U.S. as well as nations in and around the Pacific and Atlantic.

The latest expansion includes construction of a new Pacific Ocean approach channel, excavation of the existing waterway and ocean entrances, and alterations to the Gatun Spillway that raise the man-made lake's level approximately 1 Vz feet to provide more water storage and support the $3.4 billion components known as the Third Set of Locks (TSL), designed by MWH.

"I've been in the biz for 35 years and I don't think I've ever seen any single project as complex and challenging as the Panama Canal," said Alan Krause, chairman and CEO of MWH.

The Colorado company will be featured on a special edition of H2's (the newly rebranded History Channel) "Modern Marvels," scheduled to air Feb. 2. The documentary-style program will focus on the technology, manpower and intellect required to...