37. A few facts: -In 1880 French start building a sea level canal under Ferdinand de Lesseps; in 10 years 20,000 workers died. -US buy out the French for $40 million, President Theodore Roosevelt would make it happen. -Chief engineer was John Wallace; a yellow fever outbreak in 2005 led to workers fleeing and to his dismissal. Replaced by John Stevens, he stops all work, insist on proper planning, eradicate disease, new homes and mess halls for workers. Decision to build a lock canal to lift ships 85’ to a summit lake in three locks. Need to built an earth dam to create world’s largest man made lake, Lake Gatun. Most of the electricity used by the canal is generated at this dam. Lake Gatun level must be maintained to supply water to locks, for each large cruise ship that transit 52 million gallons of water is flushed to the oceans. Water flow from Chagres River. On average 14000 ships transit each year.
