6 ms·

It's also a little more complicated than that. A lot of the water for the canal comes from Lake Alajuela, which was formed by damming the Chagres River. Because

It's also a little more complicated than that. A lot of the water for the canal comes from Lake Alajuela, which was formed by damming the Chagres River. Because of deforestation and rapid erosion, the lake has been filling with silt and is no longer able to hold as much water as it used to. This is a problem that has been known for the last few decades, but very little has been done to address it. This current problem is especially bad because the dry season normally begins 4-6 weeks from now and there will be little rainfall to re-fill Lake Alajuela (or the lake its water flows into, Gatun Lake, the backbone of the canal). (I previously worked for the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama and lived on an island in the Panama Canal)

dieselgate 3y ago
Cool thanks for some perspective on things. Didn't know the Panama Canal is big enough to contain residential islands.
- nickstinemates 3y ago
  It's huge. I recommend visiting it, and, zip-lining across the lakes. It's a sight.
- trelliscoded 3y ago
  The canals are just the edges of the entire path, the part in between is enormous compared to them. Because they flooded a forest, there’s a lot going on in the intermediate lake.
killjoywashere 3y ago
Comments like above are why I keep coming to HN. Dam it!
j1elo 3y ago
> Because of deforestation and rapid erosion, the lake has been filling with silt and is no longer able to hold as much water as it used to. This is a problem that has been known for the last few decades, but very little has been done to address it. So that lake is like the small open source project that supports the weight of all internet: critical for everybody, yet neglected. The Canal moves such amounts of money every year, not to say over decades, that preserving the lake in better conditions ought to have been easy. Now the ball of mud is exploding in their faces. It's like if "we" (collectively) never learned.
- chiefalchemist 3y ago
  Sounds like a riff on The Tragedy of The Commons. Everyone is so busy so successful using the resource no one wants to pause to consider saving the resource.
  - dustingetz 3y ago
    always has been .jpg coordination dilemmas, particularly resource allocation, are The Problem
    - lazide 3y ago
      Misaligned incentives too
  - throwaway736261 3y ago
    It's not Tragedy of the Commons because it's not a commons: there's a single controlling entity that should be interested in managing the resource. It's closer to a discounting problem, because future benefits from investment made today are discounted because it's the future's problem. (And it's a great service to society that people have been debunking the myth of the Tragedy of the Commons which was an armchair moralist article in scientific clothing that had no empirical basis when it was published and yet got widely cited for a while because it was emotionally appealing.)
    - richk449 3y ago
      Can you tell me more about how the tragedy of the commons is a myth? I am no economist, but I thought it was a straightforward and well understood outcome.
      - Affric 3y ago
        PDF warning: https://dlc.dlib.indiana.edu/dlc/bitstream/handle/10535/3113/buck_NoTragedy.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y https://dlc.dlib.indiana.edu/dlc/bitstream/handle/10535/3113... The commons were well managed by local people and enclosure was a land grab by the rich.
RHSeeger 3y ago
> (I previously worked for the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama and lived on an island in the Panama Canal) This is, by a wide margin, the most interesting "casually made" comment I'd read in a bit. Any chance you can provide slightly more details? I didn't even know there _was_ an island in the Panama Canal; nonetheless people living on it (presumably all researchers?)
- civilitty 3y ago
  It's called the Barro Colorado: https://stri.si.edu/facility/barro-colorado https://stri.si.edu/facility/barro-colorado
zo1 3y ago
For anyone curious to visualize this, I found this image: https://www.marineinsight.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/panama-info.jpg https://www.marineinsight.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/pan... Prior to seeing the image above, I always assumed the canal was just a single passageway between a narrow spot of land. In the image you can also see the mentioned Lake Alajuela in the top-right.
- tetris11 3y ago
  Thanks for this, I was looking for a similar map: https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=13/9.2267/-79.5463&layers=P https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=13/9.2267/-79.5463&layers...
m463 3y ago
> (I previously worked for the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama and lived on an island in the Panama Canal) I read that the canal never got built at first because of mosquitoes. Are mosquitoes still a problem there?
nucleative 3y ago
Our economies have become so hyper efficient that we've lost our ecological sustainability. It's like the universe said wait a minute, slow down. I'll tell you when that container ship can move.

dieselgate 3y ago

Cool thanks for some perspective on things. Didn't know the Panama Canal is big enough to contain residential islands.

nickstinemates 3y ago
It's huge. I recommend visiting it, and, zip-lining across the lakes. It's a sight.
trelliscoded 3y ago
The canals are just the edges of the entire path, the part in between is enormous compared to them. Because they flooded a forest, there’s a lot going on in the intermediate lake.

killjoywashere 3y ago

Comments like above are why I keep coming to HN. Dam it!

j1elo 3y ago

> Because of deforestation and rapid erosion, the lake has been filling with silt and is no longer able to hold as much water as it used to. This is a problem that has been known for the last few decades, but very little has been done to address it. So that lake is like the small open source project that supports the weight of all internet: critical for everybody, yet neglected. The Canal moves such amounts of money every year, not to say over decades, that preserving the lake in better conditions ought to have been easy. Now the ball of mud is exploding in their faces. It's like if "we" (collectively) never learned.

chiefalchemist 3y ago
Sounds like a riff on The Tragedy of The Commons. Everyone is so busy so successful using the resource no one wants to pause to consider saving the resource.
- dustingetz 3y ago
  always has been .jpg coordination dilemmas, particularly resource allocation, are The Problem
  - lazide 3y ago
    Misaligned incentives too
- throwaway736261 3y ago
  It's not Tragedy of the Commons because it's not a commons: there's a single controlling entity that should be interested in managing the resource. It's closer to a discounting problem, because future benefits from investment made today are discounted because it's the future's problem. (And it's a great service to society that people have been debunking the myth of the Tragedy of the Commons which was an armchair moralist article in scientific clothing that had no empirical basis when it was published and yet got widely cited for a while because it was emotionally appealing.)
  - richk449 3y ago
    Can you tell me more about how the tragedy of the commons is a myth? I am no economist, but I thought it was a straightforward and well understood outcome.
    - Affric 3y ago
      PDF warning: https://dlc.dlib.indiana.edu/dlc/bitstream/handle/10535/3113/buck_NoTragedy.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y https://dlc.dlib.indiana.edu/dlc/bitstream/handle/10535/3113... The commons were well managed by local people and enclosure was a land grab by the rich.

RHSeeger 3y ago

> (I previously worked for the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama and lived on an island in the Panama Canal) This is, by a wide margin, the most interesting "casually made" comment I'd read in a bit. Any chance you can provide slightly more details? I didn't even know there _was_ an island in the Panama Canal; nonetheless people living on it (presumably all researchers?)

civilitty 3y ago
It's called the Barro Colorado: https://stri.si.edu/facility/barro-colorado https://stri.si.edu/facility/barro-colorado

zo1 3y ago

For anyone curious to visualize this, I found this image: https://www.marineinsight.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/panama-info.jpg https://www.marineinsight.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/pan... Prior to seeing the image above, I always assumed the canal was just a single passageway between a narrow spot of land. In the image you can also see the mentioned Lake Alajuela in the top-right.

tetris11 3y ago
Thanks for this, I was looking for a similar map: https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=13/9.2267/-79.5463&layers=P https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=13/9.2267/-79.5463&layers...

m463 3y ago

> (I previously worked for the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama and lived on an island in the Panama Canal) I read that the canal never got built at first because of mosquitoes. Are mosquitoes still a problem there?

nucleative 3y ago

Our economies have become so hyper efficient that we've lost our ecological sustainability. It's like the universe said wait a minute, slow down. I'll tell you when that container ship can move.