The public outdoor pool in Oak Ridge is the largest spring-fed pool in the Southeast, holding about 2.2 million gallons of water. So, each ship requires about 26.6 pools worth of water, and during normal water levels, about 40 ships pass through the canal every day. Can you do the math on how much water the Canal uses on average every day? What about every year?
Recently, the Panama Canal was expanded to allow even bigger ships to pass through. New water recycling pools–which you can see on my Panama Canal album here–were built to try to reduce the amount of water used for each passage. However, fishermen in Lago Gatún have told me that since these new pools have been installed, the lake is getting saltier–they can taste it. This poses a threat to the drinking water supply that a lot of people, including me, rely on. It could also change the fish living in the lake.
Stopping climate change is an important step in protecting freshwater resources in Panama and around the world. We’ll all be looking towards May, too, when the next rainy season is supposed to come, to see if this drought will finally end.
