4 ms·
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/p
by 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 agoUnless 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 agoHere’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 agoSo 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.