With the opening of a new Water Quality Laboratory, the Panama Canal will strengthen its water resource management system, which will allow it to optimize the processes to continue ensuring that the water that consumes more than 50% of the Panamanian population is of the best quality.

One of the main benefits of this new installation is the speed of results; since they will be immediate and, consequently, decision-making will be more timely and expeditious.

Until recently, there were some analyses that could only be carried out in laboratories in the United States, where the samples were sent and the results were obtained in a period of up to 90 days.

According to the channel administrator, Ricaurte Vásquez. In this way, having a laboratory equipped with state-of-the-art proven technology offers significant advantages in terms of accuracy, speed, contamination detection and multifunctional analysis capacity, which is essential to ensure the safety and quality of drinking water.

On the other hand, the combination of the new equipment and a trained personnel offer a guarantee of precision and reliability of the results for the benefit of the population that supplies itself with the water supplies that the Canal manages, and those that are supplied with the Gatún and Alhajuela reservoirs.

“This laboratory has a more comprehensive element than traditional water laboratories in terms of quality control, since the Channel analyzes the entire life chain of water: first, the original source; second, the water that enters the water supply and, third, the water that comes out of the water supply,” explained Vásquez.

This new laboratory contributes to the efforts carried out by the Panama Canal to manage the water resource in the midst of the climate crisis that is impacting the world, and which in recent months has been increased by the influence of the El Niño phenomenon that caused a decrease in rainfall on the Canal basin.