3 ms·

You could pump water to the highest lock lower than the lake though. But salt water doesn't mix well with things not intended for salt water.

deleted 3y ago
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aziaziazi 3y ago
No you can’t: locks need to open for ship to go through and pools mix when this happen. This is also true for lockTop and LockTopMinusOne. In Panama Canal, LockTop is the lake. It’s Lake Gatún and provide fresh water for Panama City as well as other life forms in this pristine region.
- lstodd 3y ago
  How it is pristine when major part of worldwide shipping has been going through it for more than a century I cannot fathom.
  - pchristensen 3y ago
    Much of the watershed has been protected from development in order to ensure the water supply for the canal. Also, no matter the current level of pristineness/pollution, there's no way pumping millions of gallons of seawater per day would help.
    - dumbo-octopus 3y ago
      Unless of course it prevented the draining of millions of gallons of freshwater. No matter what there is some amount of mixing with the sea. The question is at which lock should that happen. Currently it's at lock 1, everyone here is arguing it'd be absolutely impossible for it to happen at any other lock, without providing any justification.
      - aziaziazi 3y ago
        Here’s a document “salinity intrusion in the Panama Canal”: https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA378475.pdf https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA378475.pdf Graphs at page 32 and onward shows that you could (in theory) pump salt water in one more lock upward in both sides. It will make the last lock before lake at 0.5ppt (Atlantic) and 1.32ppt (Pacific). Fresh water is 0-0.5ppt.
        dumbo-octopus 3y ago
        So you could cut water by half while still keeping the last lock "fresh", and so long as the incoming flow is more than 2.5x the mixing rate, you could do the same on the pacific side.

deleted 3y ago

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aziaziazi 3y ago

No you can’t: locks need to open for ship to go through and pools mix when this happen. This is also true for lockTop and LockTopMinusOne. In Panama Canal, LockTop is the lake. It’s Lake Gatún and provide fresh water for Panama City as well as other life forms in this pristine region.

lstodd 3y ago
How it is pristine when major part of worldwide shipping has been going through it for more than a century I cannot fathom.
- pchristensen 3y ago
  Much of the watershed has been protected from development in order to ensure the water supply for the canal. Also, no matter the current level of pristineness/pollution, there's no way pumping millions of gallons of seawater per day would help.
  - dumbo-octopus 3y ago
    Unless of course it prevented the draining of millions of gallons of freshwater. No matter what there is some amount of mixing with the sea. The question is at which lock should that happen. Currently it's at lock 1, everyone here is arguing it'd be absolutely impossible for it to happen at any other lock, without providing any justification.
    - aziaziazi 3y ago
      Here’s a document “salinity intrusion in the Panama Canal”: https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA378475.pdf https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA378475.pdf Graphs at page 32 and onward shows that you could (in theory) pump salt water in one more lock upward in both sides. It will make the last lock before lake at 0.5ppt (Atlantic) and 1.32ppt (Pacific). Fresh water is 0-0.5ppt.
      - dumbo-octopus 3y ago
        So you could cut water by half while still keeping the last lock "fresh", and so long as the incoming flow is more than 2.5x the mixing rate, you could do the same on the pacific side.