<\/p>\n
A long, wooden boat puttered down the Indio River\u2019s chocolate waters carrying Ana Mar\u00eda Antonio and a colleague from the Panama Canal Authority on a mission to hear directly from villagers who could be affected by plans to dam the river.<\/p>\n
The canal forms the backbone of Panama\u2019s economy, and the proposed dam would secure the water needed to ensure the canal\u2019s uninterrupted operation at a time of increasingly erratic weather.<\/p>\n
It also would flood villages, where about 2,000 people would need to be relocated and where there is opposition to the plan, and curb the flow of the river to other communities downstream.<\/p>\n
Those living downstream know the mega-project will substantially alter the river, but they hope it will bring jobs, potable water, electricity and roads to their remote communities and not just leave them impoverished.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe, as the Panama Canal, understand that many of these areas have been abandoned in terms of basic services,\u201d Antonio said.<\/p>\n
The canal<\/strong><\/p>\n The Panama Canal was completed in 1914 and generates about a quarter of the government\u2019s budget.<\/p>\n Last year, the canal authority reduced the number of ships that could cross daily by about 20% because rains hadn\u2019t replenished the reservoirs used to operate the locks, which need about 50 million gallons of fresh water for each ship. It led to shipping delays, and in some cases companies looking for alternatives. By the time restrictions were lifted this month, demand had fallen.<\/p>\n To avoid a repeat due to drought exacerbated by climate change, the plan to dam the Indio River was revived.<\/p>\n It received a boost this summer with a ruling from Panama\u2019s Supreme Court. For years, Panama has wanted to build another reservoir to supplement the main supply of water from Lake Gatun \u2014 a large manmade lake and part of the canal\u2019s route \u2014 but a 2006 regulation prohibited the canal from expansion outside its traditional watershed. The Supreme Court\u2019s decision allowed a re-interpretation of the boundaries.<\/p>\n The Indio runs roughly parallel to the canal, through the isthmus. The new reservoir on the Indio would sit southwest of Lake Gatun and supplement the water from there and what comes from the much smaller Alhajuela Lake to the east. The Indio reservoir would allow an estimated 12 to 13 additional canal crossings each day.<\/p>\n The reservoirs also provide water to the more than 2 million people \u2014 half the country\u2019s population \u2014 living in the capital.<\/p>\n The river<\/strong><\/p>\n Monkeys screeched in the thick jungle lining the Indio on an August morning. The boat weaved around submerged logs below concrete and rough timber houses high on the banks. Locals passed in other boats, the main means of transportation for the area.<\/p>\n At the town of El Jobo, Antonio and her colleague carefully climbed the muddy incline from the river to a room belonging to the local Catholic parish, decorated with flowers and bunches of green bananas.<\/p>\n Inside, residents from El Jobo and Guayabalito, two communities that won\u2019t be flooded, took their seats. The canal authority has held dozens of such outreach meetings in the watershed.<\/p>\n The canal representatives hung posters with maps and photos showing the Indio\u2019s watershed. They talked about the proposed project, the Supreme Court\u2019s recent decision, a rough timeline.<\/p>\n Antonio said that canal officials are talking to affected residents to figure out their needs, especially if they are from the 37 tiny villages where residents would have to be relocated.<\/p>\n Canal authorities have said the Indio is not the only solution they\u2019re considering, but just days earlier canal administrator Ricaurte Cat\u00edn V\u00e1squez said it would be the most efficient option, because it has been studied for at least 40 years.<\/p>\n That\u2019s nearly as long as Jeronima Figueroa, 60, has lived along the Indio in El Jobo. Besides being the area\u2019s critical transportation link, the Indio provides water for drinking, washing clothes and watering their crops, she said.<\/p>\n \u201cThat river is our highway and our everything,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The dam\u2019s effect on the river\u2019s flow was top of mind for the assembled residents, along with why the reservoir is needed, what would the water be used for, which communities would have to relocate, how property titles would be handled, would the construction pollute the river.<\/p>\n Puria Nu\u00f1ez of El Jobo summed up the fears: \u201cOur river isn\u2019t going to be the same Indio River.\u201d<\/p>\n Progress<\/strong><\/p>\n Kenny Alexander Macero, a 21-year-old father who raises livestock in Guayabalito, said it was clear to him that the reservoir would make the canal a lot of money, but he wanted to see it spur real change for his family and others in the area.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not against the project, it\u2019s going to generate a lot of work for people who need it, but you should be sincere in saying that \u2018we\u2019re going to bring projects to the communities that live in that area,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cWe want highways. Don\u2019t try to fool us.\u201d<\/p>\n One complication was that while the canal authorities would be in charge of the reservoir project, the federal government would have to carry out the region\u2019s major development projects. And the feds weren\u2019t in the room.<\/p>\n The project is not a guarantee of other benefits. There are communities along Lake Gatun that don\u2019t have potable water.<\/p>\n Gilberto Toro, a community development consultant not involved in the canal project, said that the canal administration is actually more trusted by people than Panama\u2019s federal government, because it hasn\u2019t been enmeshed in as many scandals.<\/p>\n \u201cEverybody knows that the canal projects come with a seal of guarantee,\u201d Toro said. \u201cSo a lot of people want to negotiate with the canal in some way because they know what they\u2019re going to offer isn\u2019t going to be trinkets.\u201d<\/p>\n Figueroa expressed similar faith in the canal administrators, but said that residents would need to monitor them closely to avoid being overlooked. \u201cWe can\u2019t keep living far behind like this,\u201d she said. \u201cWe don\u2019t have electricity, water, healthcare and education.\u201d<\/p>\n Next steps<\/strong><\/p>\n President Jos\u00e9 Ra\u00fal Mulino has said a decision about the Indio River project would come next year. The canal administration ultimately will decide, but the project would require coordination with the federal government. No public vote is necessary, but the canal administrator has said they are looking to arrive at a public consensus.<\/p>\n Opposition has emerged, not surprisingly, in communities that would be flooded.<\/p>\n Among those is Limon, where the canal representatives parked their car and boarded a boat to El Jobo. It\u2019s where the reservoir\u2019s dam would be constructed. The highway only arrived there two years ago and the community still has many needs.<\/p>\n Olegario Hern\u00e1ndez has had a sign out in front of his home in Limon for the past year that says: \u201cNo to the reservoirs.\u201d<\/p>\n The 86-year-old farmer was born there and raised his six children there. His children all left the area in search of opportunities, but Hern\u00e1ndez wants to stay.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t need to leave,\u201d Hern\u00e1ndez said, but the canal administration \u201cwants to kick us out.\u201d<\/p>\n – Alma Sol\u00eds., AP News<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A long, wooden boat puttered down the Indio River\u2019s chocolate waters carrying Ana Mar\u00eda Antonio and a colleague from the Panama Canal Authority on a mission to hear directly from villagers who could be affected by plans to dam the river. The canal forms the backbone of Panama\u2019s economy, and the proposed dam would secure…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":124,"featured_media":9050,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/dims.apnews.com\/dims4\/default\/319f96e\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/7668x5112+0+0\/resize\/1440x960!\/format\/webp\/quality\/90\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fassets.apnews.com%2F3b%2F5e%2F3fc8812c158748d4ed20b6802bb1%2F67c0ab9dddde40ea8f0ad78c13184670","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[185],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy-infrastructure"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/124"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9048"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9048\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9051,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9048\/revisions\/9051"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}