Panama Canal Problems

Problems Building the Panama Canal The Panama canal is considered one of the largest and most difficult engineering projects ever. Every year, about 13,500 ships use it. There was many problems concerning the Panama canal before, during, and after the canal’s construction. The problems facing the people involved with building the canal all relate to the five themes of geography in some way or another. Movement is the theme that deals with people and ideas moving around. In the early 1850s, the United States and Great Britain formed an agreement preventing either country from building a canal in Central America. Later on, America wanted to but couldn't. This posed as a problem. They attempted to threaten Britain. Great Britain realized that

Yellow fever was a huge problem for the French and was a reason they dropped the project. When the U.S. took over the construction of the canal, yellow fever affected and killed many workers and newcomers. People had developed a fear of mosquitoes. Then, and man named Colonel William Crawford Gorgas was assigned to sanitation duty. Changed everything. He dug ditches to drain standing water. He sprayed puddles with oil, fumigated buildings, and installed a pure water system. He truly helped the people adapt to yellow fever and mosquitoes by modifying the environment around

In the 1930s, after the canal was finished, officials decided that the water supply they had access to wouldn’t be enough to fill it sufficiently. The location of the dam was conveniently located alongside the Chagres River. The workers were able to use the location of the river to build the Madden Dam which was finished in 1935. It created Alajuela Lake. They were able to add more locks to the canal, and it was able to carry larger ships. If the river wasn’t there, the canal would not be as successful as it is today because it wouldn’t have the amount of water it needed to carry huge cargo and warships. Before the U.S. took on the project, they needed to decide where to build the canal. The French had attempted to build in Panama in 1870, but left because of the diseases, rain, and monetary issues. The United States examined the physical characteristics of both Panama and Nicaragua. Panama was mountainous so the canal would need many complex locks. Nicaragua was flat, and had many lakes. Nicaragua was the first choice for the canal, but the active volcanoes prompted them to choose Panama. The physical characteristics of Central America played a huge role, and if Nicaragua didn’t have volcanoes, we would know the Nicaragua canal; not the