The canal opens a laboratory for water quality

This Wednesday, the Panama Canal opened a laboratory to analyze the quality of drinking water in its basin, which is used for the consumption of half of the country’s population, amid the water crisis the road is facing due to severe drought resulting from the El Niño phenomenon.

“For the Panama Canal, the issue of water quality is critical, the issue of water quantity is vital,” Canal Manager Ricaurte Vásquez said during the event.

That laboratory, located near the Miraflores locks – located in the Panamanian Pacific and closest to the capital -, It will be used to measure and analyze the water in the canal basin, mainly from Lake Gatún and Alahueja, two artificial lakes that serve both for roads and for the consumption of some 2.5 million inhabitants, out of the country’s 4 million.

“This laboratory has a much more extensive element than just drinking water. In this laboratory, with all the samples we take all the time, we ensure that the quality of the water discharged into the lakes is maintained and when there is an alarm, we take action,” he said. Vásquez to reporters.

He added that another of the functions of this laboratory is to pass the controls so that it is drinkable because “the quality of the water is important.” as it is the primary source of human consumption,” and this measurement in turn allows for “pollution prevention” in the lakes, rivers, and streams that flow into the Canal.

“We are at three different levels of quality control: at the original source, (such as) rivers and streams that empty into lakes, at the lake level, what goes into the water treatment plant and what comes out (of it). This must give Panamanians the assurance that the water they drink is clean, safe and of the best quality available,” said Vásquez.

The Panama Canal “supplies” water to 58 percent of the Panamanian population, “raw water comes from the Panama Canal lake”, part of it is processed by the Government, and part is processed by road, the manager reminded.

The Panama Canal, through which about 3% of world trade passes and which was opened in August 1914, is suffering from a water crisis due to a prolonged drought, which has lowered the water level in the main lake that serves the canal and reduced the number of daily traffic, which will this month from 24 come to 27, but still far from 36 in optimal conditions.

These restrictions on daily transits caused a halt in ship traffic, so that since last August, up to 160 ships have been waiting for several weeks, mostly without reservations or without a planned crossing, and shippers have decided to use other routes due to the difficulty of crossing the channel.

As a consequence, toll revenues are expected to decrease by $800 million this fiscal year, as ACP administrator Ricaurte Vásquez told EFE last January.

The current crisis stems from the lack of lakes Gatún (1913) and Alhajuel (1935), for which the highway administration has already identified projects to guarantee water resources, but their completion depends on the decisions of the Panamanian government.