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Pilots say conflicting things about referendum, criticize canal plan by Eric Jackson After months of study and, so The Panama News has been told, a fair amount of internal disagreement, the Panama Canal Pilots Union unveiled its technical analysis of the third locks contemplated in the Torrijos – Alemán Zubieta Plan at the Hotel Marriott on August 29. The pilots criticized the Panama Canal Authority (ACP) for having failed to consult them about the plan, and showed a collection of videos collected as part of a months-long investigation that took their technical team to Belgium to observe locks with certain similarities to the ones proposed here. The union warned of some serious safety issues and backed that up with videos of accidents in Belgian and German locks, which they pointed out showed the marks of numerous bumps and scrapes. The basic problems, the pilots said, include: · Locks in which ships are not pulled through by mules (locomotives) that keep the ships fairly taut as they move through the chambers as they are here, but by tugboats attached by lines for and aft, which must maneuver in the locks and are highly affected by currents and winds; · Lock gates that slide into the chamber walls from one side, which, unlike the Panama Canal’s swinging gates that create currents that meet ships head-on, cause tricky cross-currents starting from the side where the sliding gates first open; · A team of pilots and tugboat captains who are not trained in the precision teamwork and techniques that are used in the European-style locks. The union also, without making direct reference to the ACP’s claims, refuted one of the key points in the “yes” campaign’s propaganda, the notion that the technology that has been proposed for the third locks has been proven. The Belgian locks they studied, they noted, were all single locks. There is no series of three locks approaching the size of what is proposed here that uses the European tugs in the lock system. Moreover, few of the European locks deal with the complications of an interface between salt water and fresh water bodies, and none of them rise and fall as steeply as what is proposed here. During their presentation the pilots showed videos comparing the turbulence of water rising in European locks and in the present Panama Canal Locks, with the latter much greater because of the distance the water spills from the higher to the lower chamber. A canal pilot who asked not to be identified also noted that the water saving basins used in some German locks are much smaller than those proposed for Panama, and expressed concern that the flow of water between these and the lock chambers would further complicate the currents that cause so many accidents in locks in which tugboats operate. So what conclusions did the union draw? They were modest ones, the product of both pressures from the ACP and internal divisions. The union, which represents the 250 highly skilled, highly paid canal pilots, called a canal expansion “non-postponable” but added that it would take a stand neither for nor against the specific ballot proposal. It said that if the plan is accepted there must be an intensive training program for both pilots and tug captains, who must train together, and that the union must have a say in the new locks’ final design details (one of which must be a widening of the lock entrances). The spin from the ACP management, the Torrijos administration and those mainstream media was almost as interesting as the pilots’ presentation itself. Canal administrator Alberto Alemán Zubieta and Canal Affairs Minister Ricaurte Vásquez thanked the union for its input and promised to heed their suggestions. As with previous “add-on” promises that increase costs (like the bridge and tunnel across the Atlantic entrance to the canal), the “yes” campaign did not adjust its price tag estimate and stuck with the $5.25 billion figure in its propaganda despite the new commitment. Most of the daily newspapers and television stations buried the part about the pilots’ safety concerns and some media, most notoriously El Panama America and the MEDCOM television stations, emphasized the statement about how an expansion can’t be put off to the point that they implied a “yes” endorsement that the Torrijos - Alemán Zubieta Plan specifically didn’t get. Reactions from the “no” camp were mixed. Former canal administrator Fernando Manfredo Jr. noted that “During five years, when millions of dollars were spent contracting foreign advisors, the Panama Canal Pilots were disregarded in preparing the Master Plan,” and concluded that The pilots’ study proved that the project is far from being completed, including vital areas as safety of navigation in the new locks. If that is the case, what is it that the people of Panama are going to decide in the 10-22 referendum?” But law professor Miguel Antonio Bernal said he left the presentation “very disappointed” with what he considered a “technical” cover for a flawed plan. The pilots “failed as citizens” by not taking a forthright stand against the ballot proposal, Bernal said. Neftalí I. Jaén of the Group of Independents for NO (GINO) took the pilots’ statement as one more proof that the cost of the canal expansion has been understated by the ACP.
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