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China is financing a huge canal in Nicaragua that runs through Lake Nicaragua. It is a freshwater lake, but of course ocean water is salt. What will happen to the lake, will it just gradually turn into salt water?
Environmentalists hate this project of course. I'm sure China is paying a hefty amount.
Wouldn't life end in the lake since it's adapted to fresh water?? Maybe not plants but certainly larger animals.
China is financing a huge canal in Nicaragua that runs through Lake Nicaragua. It is a freshwater lake, but of course ocean water is salt. What will happen to the lake, will it just gradually turn into salt water?
Environmentalists hate this project of course. I'm sure China is paying a hefty amount.
Wouldn't life end in the lake since it's adapted to fresh water?? Maybe not plants but certainly larger animals.
IMO, it will become brackish water. The same happens in Florida. You have fresh water lakes and streams that merge into rivers which then merge into oceans. The lakes are fresh water, the rivers are brackish water and the ocean is salt water. Of course, this will cause a lot of death to wildlife and plant life that cannot survive in saltwater environments.
Lake Gatun in Panama is fresh water. When going through the locks returning to the ocean you go from fresh to salt in the 3 locks (and of course vise verse). Pretty cool when they open up the last one and the salt water floods in and mixes with the fresh. It causes a pretty turbulent disturbance.
Lake Okeechobee in FL is also a fresh water lake and the locks only raise lower a small amount if they need to be used at all.
China is financing a huge canal in Nicaragua that runs through Lake Nicaragua. It is a freshwater lake, but of course ocean water is salt. What will happen to the lake, will it just gradually turn into salt water?
Environmentalists hate this project of course. I'm sure China is paying a hefty amount.
Wouldn't life end in the lake since it's adapted to fresh water?? Maybe not plants but certainly larger animals.
Lake Nicaragua is 33 meters above sea level. It will never be directly connected to the ocean; ships will arrive in the lake the same way they arrive in Lake Ontario from the ocean - via locks.
While it is true that some seawater will be introduced into the lake when the locks empty after being raised full, this amount of water will be but a very tiny fraction of the volume of the lake, which is 108 cubic kilometers. The tributary rivers of the lake almost certainly wash far more salts into the lake than the locks will ever introduce.
Furthermore, since the lake is not an endorheic basin (one with no outflow, so that the only way water leaves any body contained within is via evaporation, thus leaving behind salts and minerals that had been suspended within the water) but drains into the ocean via the San Juan River. As such, the introduced seawater, vastly diluted, will ultimately drain away into the Caribbean Sea and be replaced by fresh water from the tributaries and rain.
This is not to say that their are not myriad legitimate environmental concerns with the planned canal, but the possibility that the lake might turn to saltwater or even become brackish is not one of them.
Lake Nicaragua is 33 meters above sea level. It will never be directly connected to the ocean; ships will arrive in the lake the same way they arrive in Lake Ontario from the ocean - via locks.
While it is true that some seawater will be introduced into the lake when the locks empty after being raised full, this amount of water will be but a very tiny fraction of the volume of the lake, which is 108 cubic kilometers. The tributary rivers of the lake almost certainly wash far more salts into the lake than the locks will ever introduce.
Furthermore, since the lake is not an endorheic basin (one with no outflow, so that the only way water leaves any body contained within is via evaporation, thus leaving behind salts and minerals that had been suspended within the water) but drains into the ocean via the San Juan River. As such, the introduced seawater, vastly diluted, will ultimately drain away into the Caribbean Sea and be replaced by fresh water from the tributaries and rain.
This is not to say that their are not myriad legitimate environmental concerns with the planned canal, but the possibility that the lake might turn to saltwater or even become brackish is not one of them.
Great reply. I never thought about them using a series of locks for the canal. I had this mental image of them just dredging this canal between the lake and the ocean. I didn't factor in the elevation of the lake.
While it is true that some seawater will be introduced into the lake when the locks empty after being raised full.
The water level is raised with water flowing from the lake side which is drained on the ocean side, making it impossible for salt water to flow into the lake.
There is always environmental costs to every man-made project. The question is whether it is justified. Of course the US will be against it, and rallying the environmental groups by using the environmental card is one way to stop it. The real question is the reasons for China's plan to dredge this new canal. It's really a quiet tussle between China and the US for economic dominance more than anything else.
China already owns the Panama Canal because we stupid Gringos felt bad and "returned" (how can we return something to someone who never owned it in the first place?) it to Panama, who then promptly sold it to a Chinese company that is a front for the PLA. This ladies and gents is why we never give up land over which Old Glory flies.
Why do they need 2 canals? Or is this about propping up Daniel Ortega?
Lake Gatun in Panama is fresh water. When going through the locks returning to the ocean you go from fresh to salt in the 3 locks (and of course vise verse). Pretty cool when they open up the last one and the salt water floods in and mixes with the fresh. It causes a pretty turbulent disturbance.
Lake Okeechobee in FL is also a fresh water lake and the locks only raise lower a small amount if they need to be used at all.
Hmmm salty water never enters the Panama Canal because Gatun Lake on the Atlantic side is 85 feet above sea level and Miraflores lake which is between the Miraflores and Pedro Miguel locks is 54 feet above sea level, therefore, water runs down by gravity and so far, I haven't seen water running upward as to enter and mix with the fresh water from the lakes.
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