AHC/PC/WI: Canals Through Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Mexico, etc.

[TickTock The Witch's Dead]

Would the environmental impact of the Nicaragua Canal be better or worse than the Panama one? I know that the Panama Canal had to diverge water from other rivers. And this wouldn't happen for a Nicaragua one. But of course a Nicaragua Canal brings its own host of environmental issues.

 

[TickTock The Witch's Dead]

The environmental impact is sort of a mixed question, the Nicaragua Canal (NC) is longer than the Panama Canal (PC), but it would have used Lake Nicaragua and the San Juan River. Both of these would have made the costs small and the task far easier. By using San Juan River avoids more prominent wetlands and bad terrain, but it would mess with local fish populations. If the canal used Lake Atlanta instead of the San Juan then the canal would go through the San Miguelito Wetlands (expensive and environmentally bad).

So would the Nicaragua Canal have a better impact than the one in Panama?

 

[TickTock The Witch's Dead]

It's hard to say, using the lake will cause problems, because it's freshwater and the ocean is salt-water and they'd mix a bit which would disturb some marine communities. Also the increased traffic would disturb those communities. And using the river plan they'd be disturbing more marine communities and the terrestrial communities around the river.

Using the Lake Atlanta plan, they wouldn't distrub the San Juan, but they'd disturb the San Miguelito wetland all the communities along the way, and Lake Atlanta. Due to the distance it would definitely have a big impact.

In Panama they disturbed lots of communities as well.

Proportionally, the Lake Atlanta plan most likely has a bigger environmental impact than the Panama Canal. The San Juan plan is much more mixed, because it mainly affects marine communities and the effect on the river could be pretty big.

So overall was Panama Canal a necessary evil in the end?