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posted by n1 on Friday March 06 2015, @12:02PM   Printer-friendly
from the it's-just-business dept.

A consortium of environmental scientists has expressed strong concern about the impact of a controversial Central American canal across Nicaragua.

The path of the Nicaragua Interoceanic Grand Canal to connect the Atlantic and Pacific oceans will cut through Lake Cocibolca (aka Lake Nicaragua), Central America's main freshwater reservoir and the largest tropical freshwater lake of the Americas; this plan will force the relocation of indigenous populations and impact a fragile ecosystem, including species at risk of extinction, according to Rice University environmental engineer Pedro Alvarez and other members of the consortium.

Alvarez is co-corresponding author of an article that includes 21 co-authors from 18 institutions in the United States and Central and South America who gathered at a multidisciplinary international workshop in Managua, Nicaragua, last November to discuss the project. The paper, titled "Scientists Raise Alarms About Fast Tracking of Transoceanic Canal Through Nicaragua," was published this week by the American Chemical Society journal Environmental Science and Technology.

http://phys.org/news/2015-03-scientists-nicaragua-canal.html
[Abstract]: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.est.5b00215
[Source]: http://news.rice.edu/2015/03/04/scientists-question-rush-to-build-canal-2/

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  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 06 2015, @12:23PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 06 2015, @12:23PM (#153810)

    21 authors? That is not many. 18 institutions? That is not many. Just saying...

  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by martyb on Friday March 06 2015, @12:27PM

    by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Friday March 06 2015, @12:27PM (#153811) Journal
    I don't have the reference to hand at the moment, but I seem to recall that at one time the USA had an idea of how to make a sea-level canal across Nicaragua using nukes. The idea was to sequentially detonate some large nukes with overlapping blast radii. So, as the debris from one bomb going off was landing, the next bomb would go off and clear that away from the intended canal and, in turn, advance the canal across the country. It was thought it would only take 20-30 or so years for the radiation to dissipate sufficiently for a follow-up with barges to come in and finish the job. For some reason, there was not a lot of enthusiasm from the recipient of our largess for having a radioactive stripe across the middle of their country!

    This is all from memory — does anyone else recall this and/or have links?

    --
    Wit is intellect, dancing.
    • (Score: 3, Informative) by WillAdams on Friday March 06 2015, @12:39PM

      by WillAdams (1424) on Friday March 06 2015, @12:39PM (#153817)

      Yes, I remember reading that that plan was cooked up, but that due to the concerns you cited never got past the drawing board.

      Here's a search result which cites it: http://www.wired.com/2009/04/yourfriendatom/ [wired.com]

      it was part of the "Plowshare Program" to re-purpose nuclear munitions.

    • (Score: 5, Touché) by Thexalon on Friday March 06 2015, @01:30PM

      by Thexalon (636) on Friday March 06 2015, @01:30PM (#153822)

      For some reason, there was not a lot of enthusiasm from the recipient of our largess for having a radioactive stripe across the middle of their country!

      Well, among many other reasons, every single time the US has had anything to do with Nicaragua or any of its neighbors in the last century, a lot of people were killed. That tends to dampen their enthusiasm for US involvement in, well, anything.

      --
      The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
    • (Score: 5, Informative) by gnuman on Friday March 06 2015, @03:56PM

      by gnuman (5013) on Friday March 06 2015, @03:56PM (#153862)

      Maybe US had plans, but USSR actually implemented them.

      http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/ciencia_uranium27.htm [bibliotecapleyades.net]

      In summary, during its 20-year life, the U.S. Plowshare Program carried out twelve field experiments, six nuclear cratering events, and six contained explosions. Only four Plowshare events were conducted off the Nevada Test Site, one to better understand the effects of a nuclear explosion in salt and three for nuclear gas stimulation.

      ....

      During a period of some 23 years between 1965 and 1988, the Soviet Union's "Program for the Utilization of Nuclear Explosions in the National Economy" carried out 122 nuclear explosions to study and put into industrial use some 13 applications.

      So, if you are interested, read up. USSR used nukes everywhere. From rail construction to agricultural reservoir construction. Wikipedia only has a brief overview of the above paper.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peaceful_nuclear_explosion [wikipedia.org]

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Hairyfeet on Friday March 06 2015, @07:10PM

      by Hairyfeet (75) <{bassbeast1968} {at} {gmail.com}> on Friday March 06 2015, @07:10PM (#153900) Journal

      Operation Plowshares, which was an attempt by the US military (along with their defense contractor pals) to find a non war use for nukes as it had recently been disclosed that pretty much every scenario they come up with had nukes being a worthless weapon thanks to MAD. Its been awhile since I read up on Plowshares but IIRC they also looked into using a bomb in the KT range to put out coal seam fires along with using KT bombs to drill out tunnels for railroad and car usage. This was also around the time they started talking about Project Orion, building a spacecraft powered by nuclear bombs. At the end of the day the flaws with these ideas were pretty damned obvious, anything you built using nukes would be hot as hell and unlike regular explosives its pretty damned hard to create a nuclear shape charge. But I was always fascinated by how batshit things were then, look up the nuclear mortar they built sometime, right up there with an atomic hand grenade on dumb fucking ideas.

      As for TFA? We can bitch and moan but ultimately its up to the people of Nicaragua whether it gets built or not. these arguments kinda remind me of how we bitch about how much pollution India and China create as they become modernized while ignoring we too used a shitload of pollution to get where we are. If we are gonna try to tell Nicaragua what they can and can't build we should be offering some financial incentive to make this idea less attractive, just saying "you can't do that, its bad for the environment" just strikes me as being a bunch of hypocrites.

      --
      ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
      • (Score: 1) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 06 2015, @10:45PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 06 2015, @10:45PM (#153989)

        AC here. I bothered.
        Deal with it.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by GungnirSniper on Friday March 06 2015, @01:36PM

    by GungnirSniper (1671) on Friday March 06 2015, @01:36PM (#153825) Journal

    Yes, let's forever salinate that main freshwater reservoir because fresh potable water is so abundant. No siree, this can't be shortsighted at all.

    It's like selling your rims to buy new tires, only they're the only rims you've got.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by iwoloschin on Friday March 06 2015, @03:04PM

      by iwoloschin (3863) on Friday March 06 2015, @03:04PM (#153843)

      Water only flows downhill, so unless the lake is below sea level, I wouldn't worry about salt. I would be concerned about invasive species, oil and other hazardous wastes, and environmental destruction from the construction of the canal itself. Oh, and maybe North Koreans smuggling weapons through.

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 06 2015, @03:25PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 06 2015, @03:25PM (#153850)

        I agree, the locks will keep excess salt out. But given the problems the great lakes in the US have had with stuff like zebra mussels I think lake cocibolca is going to be severely disrupted.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 06 2015, @03:12PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 06 2015, @03:12PM (#153849)

    after the Shopping Mall impact study.

    Don't worry, parking lots will save our economy, not nature.
    We must consume this planet entire.

    Concern for anything beautiful on this planet is a waste of time.

    Welcome to your Blade Runner future.

    • (Score: 2) by tibman on Friday March 06 2015, @03:51PM

      by tibman (134) Subscriber Badge on Friday March 06 2015, @03:51PM (#153858)

      In Blade Runner the world was largely void of people. Only a dozen people living on an entire city block. They crowded together for the appearance of crowds. At least, that's what i remember.

      --
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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by zafiro17 on Saturday March 07 2015, @07:06PM

    by zafiro17 (234) on Saturday March 07 2015, @07:06PM (#154189) Homepage

    I have pretty good connections to Nicaragua, probably better than most Soylentils. I lived there for many years, own property, married a Nicaraguan, and am the author of three selling non-fiction books about Nicaragua, including the best-selling travel guide to Nicaragua, a guide to living and investing in Nicaragua, and a political book called "The Dictator's Handbook: a practical manual for the aspiring tyrant", which was largely focused on examples from Nicaragua. A couple of points:

    1. The USA was interested in building a canal through Nicaragua about 100 years ago, but the Panamanians cleverly won the deal when a postage stamp showing Nicaragua and a volcano became part of a lobbying effort to portray Nicaragua as seismic and therefore a bad place for a canal.

    2. I can assure you the idea of a canal through Nicaragua has been studied extensively by the world's experts over the past 100 years, and especially in the past 20. Every study every conducted has concluded it's a bad idea for economic, ecological, and social reasons. But especially economic and environmental. Water level in the San Juan River has been dropping severely year-on-year with droughts so low that in the past several years, navigation in the river has been close to impossible and several of the rapids have been absolutely unfordable. The rainfall studies and hydrologic models show there is currently little hope that enough rainfall can be coaxed into that river basin to make it seriously navigable.

    3. Lastly, and for bonus points, a fool and his money are soon parted. President Ortega has conducted a totally opaque deal with a single Chinese investor. This isn't a government-to-government deal. And the Nicaraguan economy hasn't seen a dime of that money - it was paid, but probably went straight to Nicaragua. The people remain as poor as ever and Nicaragua remains one of the world's most indebted economies.

    4. Oh yeah, finally: they're busy kicking people off the land and buying up the canal-side land as fast as possible. This is the real estate deal of the century and Ortega and his select inner circle of cronies knew when and where the deal would be signed, and bought up the land before the deal was announced. Guess who just made a killing in real estate, sometimes by forcing poor farmers off the land?

    Everything about this deal stinks. If you've made it this far through my post and still want more, contact me: rsw@therandymon.com and I'll send you a free digital version of the Dictator's Handbook (or see www.dictatorshandbook.net for more details about what kind of deals this guy is capable of enacting).

    --
    Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis - Jack Handey