Construction of the Panama Canal - Coursework Example

Construction of Panama Canal-Extension Project Table of Contents 1. Introduction 2. Sources of risk associated with the construction of Panama Canal 3. Timeline 4. Construction cost of Panama Canal 5. Disruption 6. Planning 7. Catastrophic Failure fault tree 8. Discussion of fault tree 9. Event Tree2 10. Risks control 11. Smaller risks 12. Conclusion 13. References Introduction Panama Canal is the system of man made water channels, lakes, locks and dams which connects Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific Ocean across the Isthmus of Panama. Considering that both Atlantic Ocean and Pacific Ocean are huge water bodies, construction of this canal was not an easy job. There were many risks associated and it needed brilliant engineering and planning to finish without any hazardous damage taking place. It is considered as the most important waterway in South America and is operated by the Panama Canal Authority. It operates with the help of fresh water from Gatun Lake, which is located 80 feet above the sea level, to make gravity lock systems functional. It has been built between 1904 and 1914 and since then every year 800,000 boats use it as passage between these two oceans (Summs and Kelley, 1988). From the engineering point of view, construction of Panama Canal is considered to be one of world’s greatest projects. Nowadays Panama Canal is under the process of completion and this project will be completed by 2015, this expansion project includes building of bigger locks, raising the water level of Gatun Lake and deepening the access channels after which bigger ships can also travel through this canal (Sherman, 2008). History of the Panama Canal construction can be traced back to 16th century when Spanish government wanted to have an easy and short access to the resources of Asia and some of the South American countries. For this purpose Spanish government planned to build this canal. This canal is about 50 miles long. Its construction was completed in two phases, first in 1881 to 1888 by the French and then in 1904 to 1914 by the Americans. Panama Canal project includes the construction of Gatun Lake formed by the damming of Rio Charges (Committee Report, 1924). Since the time it was constructed, Panama Canal is continuously playing a crucial role in world trade. It is estimated that approximately 5% of the world’s trade ships are using this canal to reach their destination, in this way this canal making up 9% of the Panama GDP. However, since 1970 there is stagnation in canal traffic that was primarily due to the opening of trans- isthmian pipeline used for the transportation of the Alaskan North Sloe oil. Construction of Panama Canal was purely an economic project and little attention was paid on its impact on the environment, local ecosystems and people. It has resulted in large scale change in the landscape of that area. These changes have resulted in threats to the people as well as to the environment of that area. Sources of risks associated with the construction of Panama Canal Risks associated with the construction of Panama Canal include health related issues, environmental issues, cultural issues etc. These risks are not catastrophic but their combined effect can be a serious hazard. The list includes: Deforestation Change in local climate Human deaths Change in water availability Extinction of Wetland ecosystems Timeline Panama Canal was constructed in two periods. First period extends from 1881 to 1888 in which work has been done by the French (Avery, 1913). Second construction period was from 1904 to 1914 in which Americans have carried out construction activities and have successfully completed this project. It was the nineteenth century when a French person Ferdinand de Lesseps, who also participated in the construction of Suez Canal, felt the need of a canal at Panama. He convinced his countrymen as well as his government. Finally work started in 1882 along the Panama rail route. After few years due to financial problems, France found it impossible to complete this canal and very soon they found Americans to be interested to complete this canal because Americans were interested to have short shipping route across the isthmus and this interest reached to its peak when gold reservoirs have discovered in California. At first Lesseps was not in the favour of constructing locked canal but afterwards detailed study of this area showed that lock canal will be more suitable and easy to construct here. Theodore Roosevelt wanted to buy the rights from Colombian government of digging canals from Colombia, but they refused. Meanwhile Panama got its independence and an agreement was made between Panama and America for the digging of canal. In January 1914, a passage was completed made up of a canal by an ocean going self propelled vessel and first ship took 9 hours and 40 minutes to pass it completely. Officially this canal was opened in August 1914 (Parker, 2007). The time line of extension project is to end in 2015. Extension project is aimed at providing passage way to bigger ships. Travelling through Panama canal reduces a lot of time and cost expenditure and helps trade (Proposal of Expansion, 2006). Construction Cost of Panama Canal Construction of Panama Canal was initiated by the French, but after sometime due to financial problems they have ceased their project. At that point Americans came to the limelight and took the rights of constructing this Canal. This project proved to be one of the most expensive construction projects in the history of America. America has spent approximately $375,000,000, including $10,000,000 that has been remunerated to the Panama and $40,000,000 paid to the French government. Fortification also adds up an extra cost of $12,000,000 (Mellander, 1971). The extension project is supposed to cost at least double this amount. Major reason of increase in price is the fact that oil and other fuel prices have increased manifold during the time of original construction of Panama Canal and its extension project. Disruption Financial constraints were considered as main disruption in the construction of this canal. When the French company was about to cease this project as they were facing serious problem regarding finance, they tried hard like they issued lottery bonds to resolve the financial issues but none of the efforts proved to be fruitful. They started thinking to stop that project as it is but then Americans showed their interest and have taken the rights. Even for American government it has proved to be very expensive project. Not only financial but certain natural factors are proved to be disruptive factors during construction. During the designing of Panama Canal, the problem of land sliding was completely ignored, but it was the important natural phenomenon that can affect the construction activities. Landslides pose serious problems at Culebra Cut. Landslides problems at Culebra Cut resulted in excavation that was five more than that of original excavation (Panama Canal Authority, 2011). |Planning: Systems to address Construction Project Risks Once we start planning any construction project, a detailed study of that area is always conducted by the environmentalists to list out the factors that can possibly be affected by the whole construction that will take place in that area. Along with this, they also devise a plan in order to minimize the risks involved in the construction activity. The developers of the Panama Canal have to follow Reliability and maintainability (RAM) program that includes following major factors. Have reliability analysis and make predictions on its basis Analysis of critical items Maintainability analysis and make predictions on its basis FMECA ( Failure modes, effects, and critically analysis) Reporting of the failure and corrective action system Environmental impact analysis Reliability assurance of parts and materials Maintenance of ensured reliability performance levels Development of product maintainability Main aim of the RAM is to reduce the reliability and maintainability risks while working with service providers and the team of constructors, while using concomitant engineering process and management of project during design stage while project is in its developmental stage. RAM requirements always get recognized and executed into the project design and adjustment requirements. RAM plan includes the contribution of engineering along with RAM risks, prediction apparatus & data collection, corrective action system and the method of control by RAM analysis. The maintainability program involves the analytical studies carried out on project under discussion to make sure that all the compliance concerns of precise maintainability requirements are in compliance with the system performance. Specific chores will be performed by the maintainability engineers that are further applied to the project. Effectiveness of the maintainability performance can be ensured by performing certain special features. These features include recognition of error isolation, built in testing and the criticality of these characters to the maintainability plan. The measurement of usual instances to take in curative maintenance time and maximum fix time will also be measured by this plan. During the construction of Panama Canal, a failure reporting investigation and combined action system will be executed in order to provide collection, processing, investigation and coverage of failure information that can occur during construction. Maintainability testing, maintainability requirements, quantitative reliability and consistency testing will be covered in this report. Construction reliability will be the source that ensure reliability requirement for the service provider and also help in allocating the requirements of the sub service provider. This can be measured by the time between failures, and construction maintainability. Reliability and maintainability (RAM) management and their controls are very crucial for the contractor while they are working on listing the management duties, documenting the actions, making the technical reviews and establishing the milestones of construction process of the Panama Canal and integration of all the plans along with the problem declaration. Contractor must have a form that contain following information in appropriate form Status report RAM program plan A report that contains test plans of the maintainability qualification A report that contains test plans of the Reliability qualification Proper documentation of the RAM management, monitoring, analysis of project design and testing Reviews by the Technicians Meetings with the technical staff Stand up meetings Catastrophic Failure Fault Tree Risks of being effected by the sudden and frequent landslides or mud slides have become a major problem. Due to this excavation becomes a continuous process. As a result excavation of canal can be proved to be a critical problem for the contractors. Discussion of the fault tree As mudslide proved to be a major risk during the process of construction, so the contractors and technicians have to come up with a plan that will slow down the process of erosion and most often occurring mudslide. While we deal with this risk, it can involve the building of huge locks. Contractors must be very much precise in the use of engineering techniques and the new steels, locks are massive machines and their successful working highly depends upon the above two factors. Steel seems ideal for the construction of doors on the lock as it is light but very strong so is ideal for this use. Doors of the locks must be controlled centrally, having valves and switches that have interlock devices below locks , that is, used as preventive measures of the opening of wrong door or opening of the door before the process of fill or draining gets completed. In these locks there is a complete system of 12 locks that is always controlled centrally. In this way contractors can be successful to overcome the problem of mudslide with the help of locking system, but still there are some other risks present there and we need to look for the solution of any substitute. Prominent risk is associated with the use of explosives that is being used everyday for the construction of the canal. Event Tree2 Zoning risks that include legal and regulatory risks are the crucial risks associated with the construction of Panama Canal. As a result of the construction of this canal a large number of the native people have migrated to other areas as there homes were located on the areas that are now the part of this project (Barrett, 1913). In case of construction risks we can discuss the construction of rail system that was completed. Without this railway infrastructure, this project was on risk of not being completed on time and not on their required quality standards. In case of non construction of this railway, contractor might have had to redesign the whole project. A lot of digging was done on the project site to dig canal. Now it’s a main concern that how to get rid of the excavated soil and rock and where to dispose them off. Without doing this, the canal would be on risk. Summary of Landslides Development of lands slides during canal excavation: Year Total No of Active slides Year Total No of Active slides 1907 4 1912 19 1908 9 1913 16 1909 12 1914 10 1910 15 1915 5 1911 16 1916 3 Source: Cullen, 2010. Risk control: In order to solve mudslide problem, the constructors need to drain the mud slide material. Contractors must make the sides of lock to be thick and toughened so that they will remain stable providing passage way to all the huge ship traffic and can also be resistant to the earthquake shocks that can be experienced in this area in future. As a result of all this, locks will remain as such and under working state as they are new developed. The implementation of this project to overcome the problem of mudslide must be handled with great care. In case of Panama Canal construction in first stage it took 10 years, and approximately 75,000 labour forces took part in this project and at an expenditure of almost 400 million dollars for the completion of this project. To take care of the soil and mud from the excavations If on the right time contactors will complete the railway track then they can just make piles of the excavated soil and rocks on the side and after some time they will be changed in to huge mounds of rocks and soil. Rainfall can trigger mud slide, which can result in the filling in of the excavations. Building of railway was essential to get rid off the excavated material to some far off places (Hoffman, et. al. 2009). Smaller risks The area where Panama Canal has been constructed was covered with Tropical Rainforest and during the construction that area has undergone deforestation on large scale that resulted in the loss of precious tree species as well as of many animals that were living in those forests. These rainforests vanished at the rate of 0.2% annually during 1990-2000 while the conditions have improved due to increased awareness and now this rate has declined to 0.1% annually (Cooper et. al. 2005). This deforestation due to Panama Canal construction has also resulted in change in local climate. Approximately 150 square miles of the panama rainforest have submerged in the water of Gutan Lake. This large scale deforestation is also posing risk to the water balance of Panama Canal. Functioning of the Panama Canal depends on the supply of fresh water from Gutan Lake which is getting most of its water from rainfall. Tropical rainforest bring rainfall and their loss has resulted in less rainfall. If less water will be available then functioning of the canal will be effected (LaFeber, 1978). A lot of human deaths were recorded in the construction of this canal. There is an estimate that 27,000 workers had died during its construction and approximately 50,000 people were forced to migrate as they were living in those areas that now come under this project. For the successful completion of this project it was required to raise the water level as it was a high-level canal. For this purpose a dam was built on the Chagres river that resulted in the flooding of a large area that led to the creation of Gatun Lake which is now an important part of the canal. Due to the creation of this lake many hilltops have changed in to islands, best example of which is Barro Colorado Island. This also has resulted in the prominent changes in water relations on isthmus (Keller, 1983). Wetlands have unique ecology and were present there on large areas. These wetlands got filled resulting in complete extinction of this vital wetland ecosystem. Flora and fauna of this area are either in danger or already are extinct. Now this canal is experiencing huge trade traffic that has resulted in the water pollution of this area. This water pollution is produced by the spillage of oil from the ship, due to which local marine and fresh water animal life is under threat. Coastal communities can suffer from health issues due to this pollution. Conclusion In general there are several risks associated with the construction of Panama Canal across a broad range. In this paper few of them have been discussed. In the case of Panama Canal, identification and administering the risks associated with this project was not very easy, as most of the work, technical staff, and other labour forces, construction machinery had to be shipped to Panama. Contractors had to look after many rules and regulations very closely. Environmental impact of this project was one of the main risks. There must be proper environmental impact assessment study carried out in this area. Proper implementation of the environmental management plan that involves Monitoring and Follow up schemes during the processes of project construction and its operation, all this will help to ensure all the impacts on environment associated with this project are under control. It also involves that all the necessary action required for the Environmental Management Plan has been implemented. On the basis of this we can say that while planning or designing any construction project, it is important that contracts must include all the environmental obligations as well as a proper way of monitoring the risks produced by the project and proper implementation of remedial measures by the contractor to reduce any harmful change in the environment produced by the project. Before you will start any specific component of expansion project of canal, the Panama Canal Authority, should make it obligatory for the contractor to deposit a complete list of all the facilities they will build at the project site for the proper and smooth implementation of project. In this way they will have detailed information of all the activities that can put local environment on risk. In this plan contractor must be bound to provide information of land wise distribution of facilities, also give exact location of places where he is planning to store material and waste products. Before passing the contractor’s plan, one must study this plan thoroughly and then approve the techniques and processes they have mentioned to use for the completion of the project, and must see whether all these techniques and processes are complying with the PM, and are not producing any additional negative impact on the environment. If the plan lacks in any one these then, environmental management and complementary mitigation measures need to be proposed. There is a string of actions involved specific to their characteristic required for the success full implementation of the mitigation plan. References Avery, Ralph E. "The French Failure". America's Triumph in Panama. Chicago, IL: L.W. Walter Company. 1913. Barrett, J. The Panama Canal, what it is, what it means. 1913. Cooper, Dale, Grey, Stephen, Raymond, Geoffrey, & Walker, Phil. Project risk management guidelines managing risk in large projects and complex procurements. Wiley & Sons. 2005. Cullen, Ben. The Panama Canal and Me: A Panamax Special. 2010. Hoffman, Jon T.; Brodhead, Micheal J; Byerly, Carol R.; Williams, Glenn F. The Panama Canal: An Army's Enterprise. Washington, D.C.: United States Army Center of Military History. 70–115–1. 2009. Keller, Ulrich. The building of the Panama Canal, NY Dover Publcations, 1983. 113 LaFeber, W. The Panama Canal, The crisis in historical perspective. 1978. Mellander, Gustavo A. The United States in Panamanian Politics: The Intriguing Formative Years. Daville,Ill.:Interstate Publishers. 1971. Panama Canal Authority. Panama Canal Traffic — Years 1914–2010. Panama Canal Authority. Retrieved 2011-01-25. 2011. Parker, Matthew.  Panama Fever: The Epic Story of One of the Greatest Human Achievements of All Time - The Building of the Panama Canal. New York: Doubleday. 2007. Proposal for the Expansion of the Panama Canal – Master Plan; Autoridad del Canal de Panama; April 2006. Report of the Committee of the National Academy of Sciences on Panama Canal Slides. National Academy of Sciences Vol. XVII, Government Printing Office, Washington D.C., 1924. Sherman, Gary. Conquering the Landscape (Gary Sherman explores the life of the great American trailblazer, John Frank Stevens). History Magazine, July 2008. Summs, G., & Kelley, T. The good neighbors: America, panama, and the 1977 canal treaties. Ohio Univ. Ctr for Intl Studies. 1988. . Read More