Editors note: In Part One of this series on the Nicaragua Grand Canal, writer John Wachter looked at the impact on the lives of local people. In Part Two, he examines the potential environmental impacts of the canal on the natural life and livelihood of people in the region.
MANAGUA, Nicaragua — As the crumpled skirt of Maderas Volcano pulls back from Lago de Cocibolca, Ivanía Ponce Álvarez drums her fingers on the counter, waiting for the next customer to purchase something from an assortment of shoes, drinks, crackers and hair ties.
Although upset at how the canal will forcibly remove people from their land, her main worry about the canal, which she openly opposes, is the effect it will have on the lake. The environmental consequences of the canal are considered to be myriad.
The canal will travel through Lago de Cocibolca, Central America’s largest source of freshwater. Lago de Cocibolca contains 40 species of fish endemic to the lake, including a freshwater shark, and is expected to provide drinking water and irrigation for a growing population that faces increased risks of drought brought about by climate change.
Scientists expect the Nicaragua canal will affect the water quality of the lake. They are most troubled by the dredging during construction, the traffic of an estimated 25 ships per day, potential oil spills and the introduction of invasive species that will contaminate the water and compromise the ecosystem, which provides drinking water and protein for the people living around it.
The amount of sediment dredged to make the canal deep enough, 5 billion cubic meters, would be enough to cover the entire state of Connecticut with one foot of earth. This sediment will cloud the water column and decrease the ability of the lake to support life.
The extraordinary amount of earth removal is caused by the shallowness of the lake and the size of the vessels that wait to traverse it. The largest of these ships weigh just shy of 900 million pounds and are 500 meters long and 72 meters wide. Most importantly, they are too big for the Panama Canal.
However, the impact on the environment extends far beyond the lake. Two authors write in the journal Nature, “The excavation of hundreds of kilometers from coast-to-coast will destroy around 400,000 hectares of rainforests and wetlands.”
These rainforests, and to an even greater degree, wetlands, are critical in sequestering carbon that is changing the climate. Interestingly, the canal will both exacerbate and fall victim to climate change. Engineers and scientists are predicting a chronic shortage of water, which may pose difficulties for operating the canal locks.
Photo: EM
Benjamin Lanzas, who heads a Managua engineering firm and is the president of the Nicaraguan Chamber of Construction, is less concerned with the advice of scientists than he is with new roads and airports. He told Yale Environment 360, a publication of the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies: “If I have to run over a little frog for this project to go forward and create jobs, I will.”
Many are troubled by the fact that construction has begun without an environmental impact assessment, or EIA. Although one is currently being prepared, it is being financed by HKND, the group funding the canal project to begin with.
Joe Keisecker, a Nature Conservancy scientist, is one among many international observers and Nicaraguans upset with the lack of the EIA. The EIA would help people “see what the future looks like if development goes forward and what you can do to minimize negative biodiversity, social, and cultural impacts.”
Keisecker adds that an EIA for the canal should have been started a decade earlier because of its tremendous size and ecological implications.
Although Ivanía Álvarez opposes the project, she shares with Mr. Lanzas the hope of the new jobs. “Many Nicaraguans are out of work, so one benefit would be all the jobs.” Most sources put Nicaragua’s unemployment rate at around 7 percent. This number has been in slight decline since 2009.
A man overhears the conversation and shouts, in English, his support for the canal.
Perched hundreds of meters above the town of Balgue, Tania Massiel Valle Menocal works as an assistant manager and bartender for an ecological hotel. She plans to be promoted to manager by 2017, around the same time she will be able to look out on the heavy machinery that dredge the bottom of the lake.
She believes that the canal will be bad for the island, and bad for business. “The identity of the island will change,” she says. The “loss of tranquility” will hurt profits and drive tourists away.
She is hesitant to quantify the impact that new jobs will have in reducing poverty in Nicaragua. “The people who really need jobs will not get them,” she says.
– John Wachter
Sources: BBC, Economist, Envio, Gjenvick, The Guardian, HKND Group 1, HKND Group 2, The New Yorker, Reuters, Scientific American, Tico Times 1, Tico Times 2, Trading Economics, Western Criminology, World Bank, Yale Environment,
Photo: Flickr