topic Re: New Drought Situation in Community Chat

New Drought Situation

Kachina624 — Tue, 22 Aug 2023 18:38:09 GMT

Drought in the area of the Panama Canal is causing a huge backlog of ship with some waiting weeks to get through the canal. Today there were 137 ships waiting at each end to pass through. Each day the canal requies 3X more water than is used by NYC in a day. Most of these were fuel or container carriers, hauling merchandise for all the major American retailers.

It appears that shipping problems, originally triggered by the pandemic now continue. If your QVC order shows a backorder or delay, this may be the reason.

Re: New Drought Situation

On It — Tue, 22 Aug 2023 18:48:03 GMT

I saw that some of the ships have actually run aground. It seems they use fresh water to fill the locks. I never realized they were not using ocean water. A drought in the area is causing the lack of fresh water to be available from lakes in the area.

Re: New Drought Situation

Kachina624 — Tue, 22 Aug 2023 19:08:36 GMT

@On It. It would be like trying to fill your bathtub when low water pressure made water just a trickle.

I suppose salt water is too corrosive on the metal parts. I wonder what cruise ships are doing?

Re: New Drought Situation

Still Raining — Tue, 22 Aug 2023 18:52:24 GMT

Long ago I visited the locks, did not transit just did the land view.

It blows your mind to be close to these huge ships and see them rise up while you watch. Pretty quiet while it happens. Really feel like a wee speck when you have to look up so far.

Re: New Drought Situation

JudyL — Tue, 22 Aug 2023 18:58:02 GMT

Read this on the news the other day. Like another poster, until I read about it, I didn't realize they didn't use sea water to move the ships through.

Re: New Drought Situation

simplyfriends — Tue, 22 Aug 2023 19:29:11 GMT

@Kachina624 That is a major waterway so most likely will drive up the costs of goods even more. Ugh!

Re: New Drought Situation

Kachina624 — Tue, 22 Aug 2023 19:40:18 GMT

@simplyfriends wrote:
@Kachina624 That is a major waterway so most likely will drive up the costs of goods even more. Ugh!

@simplyfriends. You're right. I've heard that mentioned as a possibility.

Re: New Drought Situation

shoesnbags — Tue, 22 Aug 2023 19:58:03 GMT

@Kachina624

Thanks for bringing this to our attention. I somehow missed this. As Roseanne Roseannadanna said,

"It's always something!"

Re: New Drought Situation

PickyPicky3 — Tue, 22 Aug 2023 20:26:52 GMT

Re: New Drought Situation

millieshops — Tue, 22 Aug 2023 20:48:08 GMT

Incredible mess. Makes me long for the days when it was easy to think the climate problem was limited to coasts and hurricanes, problems for people who lived along the water. Drought and tornadoes and fires -- not at all effects I ever anticipated

@Kachina624 Your post took me back to the locks I went through when we did some river cruises. I didn't even want to hang onto the siderails for fear my fingers would graze the lock as we rose. Most likely the locks themselves as well as the ships don't tolerate the ocean's corrosion well.

Re: New Drought Situation

gardenman — Wed, 23 Aug 2023 14:05:33 GMT

It's not as much a saltwater/corrosion issue as an elevation one. The lake is at a higher elevation than the adjoining seas. Getting water to run uphill is a problem, so they fill the locks from higher to lower elevations and use gravity to move the water. The freshwater used is then dumped into the oceans. Each time a ship passes through the locks the water in that first and last lock is dumped into the ocean. The more ships going through the locks the more freshwater from the lake gets lost. Panama is in the middle of their rainy season now and a big storm or two will have things back to normal. Their rainy season is from April through December so there's time for Mother Nature to make things right.

The size and number of pumps it would take to use saltwater from the oceans instead of the freshwater from the higher elevations is daunting. You're talking about pumps that would have to move millions of gallons of water a day. And most of the time they don't need to as freshwater is typically abundant this time of year.

Re: New Drought Situation

shoesnbags — Wed, 23 Aug 2023 16:47:59 GMT

Thanks for the explanation @gardenman . I was wondering why they use fresh water, but that makes sense to me now.