100 years ago the Army Corp of Engineers built locks that still don’t leak. Panama can’t build locks that last a few weeks, it appears. This is why the Engineers did not use local sourced ANYTHING 100 years ago.
yes on the COE,, but now the core of engineers is mainly a bureaucracy that screws up property rights in coastal waterways......
I’d also mention that I think it was the COE who built some of the locks in New Orleans that failed in Katrina - which, shhh.....don’t let this get around...but Katrina was down to a cat 3 when it made landfall. That’s a very significant storm, but everything was supposed to be tight up through a Cat 3 storm.
Having said that, I know nothing about the specifics of the Panama Canal.
Correct, nothing was locally sourced because there was nothing there at all, other than jungle and beaches.
The only thing Panama brought to the table was a place to build a canal.