Panama has been looking for solutions to a long-term problem. Every time a ship passes through the Panama Canal, more than 50 million gallons of fresh water from Lake Gatun pour out into the ocean. Nobody ever thought Panama could run out of water. It is one of the rainiest countries in the world. But a couple years ago, a drought got so bad that the canal had to reduce traffic by more than a third - which had a huge impact on global shipping.The Panama Canal needs more water. Authorities have decided to get it by building a dam in a spot that would displace more than 2,000 people along the Rio Indio.For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.orgEmail us at [email protected] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Chapter 1: What role does the Rio Indio play in the lives of local residents?
We're standing at the edge of this beautiful river. I can see little fish swimming just under the surface. There's a small hand-carved wooden canoe floating under a tree. What does this body of water mean to you?
Ay, es mi vida entera. El río es la vida mía entera.
This river is my whole life, says 60-year-old Digna Benite. She smiles wistfully under her straw hat. She grew up here on the Rio Indio in a small village in Panama called Limón de Chagres. She would play in the water while her father caught fish. The water is so clean and calm, she says, it rises and falls. For me, it's harmony. A long, narrow boat pulls up.
Digna Benite and a younger man named Oligario Cedeno help us climb in, and we pull away from the shore. The boat pulls over to the edge of the Rio Indio and we climb up some steep stairs that are basically carved into the mud bank. Oligario, what are you showing us? Here I'm showing you where the dam would be, he says. The Rio Indio Dam.
Chapter 2: Why is Panama considering building a dam at the Rio Indio?
It doesn't exist yet, but authorities intend to start building it in just a couple years. Panama has been looking for solutions to a long-term problem. Every time a ship passes through the Panama Canal, more than 50 million gallons of fresh water from Lake Gatun pour out into the ocean. Nobody ever thought Panama could run out of water. It is one of the rainiest countries in the world.
But a couple years ago, a drought got so bad that the canal had to reduce traffic by more than a third, which had a huge impact on global shipping. Consider this. The Panama Canal needs more water, and authorities have decided to get it by building a dam in a spot that would displace Digna, Olegario, and more than 2,000 other people. From NPR, I'm Ari Shapiro.
NPR
Chapter 3: What impact could the new dam have on local communities?
It's Consider This from NPR. In a wide grassy field in rural Panama, Digna Benite looks out at the spot where the Panama Canal Authority plans to build a new dam. We stand in the shade of a wild coffee tree, the fragrance like honeysuckle, wafting off branches full of white blossoms. Senora Digna, when you see this place and you think about what might happen here, what goes through your head?
I feel as if they would kill us because we wouldn't be surrounded by nature anymore. For example, this coffee plant that we're standing by, I grab the bean, I take it, I toast it, and then that's the coffee that I have in the mornings.
Chapter 4: What is the historical significance of Lake Gatun to Panama's water issues?
It would be simplistic to say this problem is all because of climate change. Climate scientists say the data point to a more complicated reality. At the shore of another body of water, tropical birds squabble in the trees at the edge of the jungle. Lake Gatun is a freshwater reservoir created by the construction of another dam more than a century ago during the creation of the Panama Canal.
My name is Steven Patton, and I'm in charge of the physical monitoring program for the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.
Chapter 5: How does climate change complicate Panama's water shortage situation?
Patton has no view on whether the much smaller Rio Indio Dam should be built or not. What he does have is research, perhaps more than any other tropical rainforest in the world.
Our data goes back to 1880 when the French first arrived to start doing their construction. One of the first things they did was to install climate stations because they knew that rainfall was going to be an incredibly important thing.
As we walk down a modern metal dock, a startled iguana takes a swan dive. It just jumped off the dock into the water and climbed up on a rock. I can see it down there now. Patton says a couple years ago that iguana might have landed on dry dirt.
Chapter 6: What insights does Steven Patton provide about Panama's climate data?
Imagine right now the water is only about two feet below the level of the dock. It was something like 10, 12 feet. We had to go down a ladder to get on the boat.
And for you as a researcher, is that like, this feels dire and frightening? Or is it like, what an exciting thing to research?
Whenever you see a really impactful phenomenon, there's the scientist side saying, wow, that's really fascinating. But then the other human side says, ooh, that's really bad.
The drought was caused by El Nino, and scientists have not found a clear connection between El Nino and a warming planet. But Patton says there are some strange patterns emerging. The driest years in more than a century of record-keeping have been in just the last decade.
So we don't know whether this is just an outlier, that it was just random. We just threw three double sixes in a row, or whether it represents the canary in the coal mine.
That helps explain why Panama is looking for ways to increase the supply of fresh water to the canal.
Right now, we are late by six years.
Jorge Luis Quijano was administrator of the canal from 2012 to 2019.
The funding for that project included, half of it, was for actual environmental and social aspects.
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