Series Editors Lynne Itagaki, University of Missouri Daniel Rivers, Ohio State University Founding Editors Claire Potter, Wesleyan University Renee Romano, Oberlin College Advisory Board Mary Dudziak, University of Southern California Devin Fergus, Hunter College, City University of New York David Greenberg, Rutgers University Shane Hamilton, University of Georgia Jennifer Mittelstadt, Rutgers University Stephen Pitti, Yale University Robert Self, Brown University Siva Vaidhyanathan, University of Virginia Judy Wu, University of California, Irvine Deep Cut Science, Power, and the Unbuilt Interoceanic Canal Christine Keiner © by the University of Georgia Press Athens, Georgia www.ugapress.org Some rights reserved CC BY-NC-ND This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivatives . International License. Note to users: A Creative Commons license is only valid when it is applied by the person or entity that holds rights to the licensed work. Works may contain components (e.g., photographs, illustrations, or quotations) to which the rightsholder in the work cannot apply the license. It is ultimately your responsibility to independently evaluate the copyright status of any work or component part of a work you use, in light of your intended use. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/./ Most University of Georgia Press titles are available from popular e-book vendors. Library of Congress Control Number: ISBN: (ebook: open access edition) ISBN: (hardback: alk. paper) ISBN: (paperback: alk. paper) ISBN: (ebook: standard edition) An earlier version of material from chapters and appeared, in very dierent form, within Ashley Carse, Christine Keiner, Pamela M. Henson, Marixa Lasso, Paul S. Sutter, Megan Raby, and Blake Scott, “Panama Canal Forum: From the Conquest of Nature to the Construction of New Ecologies,” Environmental History ( ): –. An earlier version of material from chapters –, in very dierent form, appeared in Christine Keiner, “A Two-Ocean Bouillabaisse: Science, Politics, and the Central American Sea-Level Canal Controversy,” Journal of the History of Biology ( ): –, to which Springer Nature retains copyright. This book is published as part of the Sustainable History Monograph Pilot. With the generous support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Pilot uses cutting-edge publishing technology to produce open access digital editions of high-quality, peer-reviewed monographs from leading university presses. Free digital editions can be download- ed from: Books at JSTOR, EBSCO, Hathi Trust, Internet Archive, OAPEN, Project MUSE, and many other open repositories. While the digital edition is free to download, read, and share, the book is under copyright and covered by the following Creative Commons License: BY-NC-ND. Please consult www.creativecommons.org if you have questions about your rights to reuse the material in this book. When you cite the book, please include the following URL for its Digital Object Identier (DOI): https://doi.org/./ We are eager to learn more about how you discovered this title and how you are using it. We hope you will spend a few minutes answering a couple of questions at this url: https://www.longleafservices.org/shmp-survey/ More information about the Sustainable History Monograph Pilot can be found at https://www.longleafservices.org. To the Memory of James A. Keiner – Sailor, Civil Servant, Father, Friend Illustrations xi Acknowledgments xiii The Central American Sea-Level Canal and the Environmental History of Unbuilt Megaprojects . ­ Canalizing and Colonizing the Isthmus Confronting the Canal’s Obsolescence Mobilizing for Panama Canal II . Navigating High Modernism Assessing Mankind’s Most Gigantic Biological Experiment Avoiding an Elastic Collision with Knowledge . - Optioning the Sea-Level Canal for the Energy Crisis Containing the Panama Canal Treaty’s Environmental Fallout Remembering the Unbuilt Canal Notes Bibliography .. A landslide blocking the Panama Canal, .. U.S. Air Force personnel and residents of Río Salud, Colón, Panama, .. Senator Warren G. Magnuson and U.S. military o cials discussing nuclear excavation of a second Central American canal, March , .. Equipment delivered via U.S. Navy tank landing ship for the nuclear Route eld studies, Soskatupu, Darién, Panama, ca. .. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers colonel Alexander Sutton compensating Guna chief Yabiliquina, Soskatupu, Darién, Panama, September , .. Dr. Reina Torres de Araúz with Guna, Panamanian, and U.S. representatives, Soskatupu, Darién, Panama, September , .. U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson and Smithsonian Institution secretary S. Dillon Ripley, June , .. Panamanian general Omar Torrijos and U.S. president Jimmy Carter at the signing of the Panama Canal Treaties, Washington, D.C., September , .. Map of proposed Central American interoceanic canal routes, .. Map of the routes studied by the Atlantic-Pacic Interoceanic Canal Studies Commission, .. U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey map of the Panama Canal Zone, I am grateful beyond words to my generous mentors, friends, and colleagues for helping me in many ways: Sharon Kingsland, Pamela Henson, Jerey Stine, James Carlton, Robert Kargon, Helen Rozwadowski, Kurk Dorsey, Ronald Doel, Stephen Bocking, Ashley Carse, Marixa Lasso, Megan Raby, Blake Scott, Paul Sutter, Penelope Hardy, Lincoln Paine, John Cloud, Matthew Booker, Ge- rard Fitzgerald, Matt Chew, Roger Turner, Jeremy Vetter, Mark Hersey, Matt McKenzie, Daniel Macfarlane, Scott Kaufman, Mark Lawrence, Shaine Scar- minach, Katey Anderson, Jordan Coulombe, Derek Nelson, Jake Hamblin, Tony Adler, Samantha Muka, Karen Rader, JoAnn Palmeri, Katie Terezakis, Tamar Carroll, Rebecca Edwards, Michael Laver, Rich Newman, Rebecca Scales, Corinna Schlombs, Rebecca DeRoo, Deborah Blizzard, Tom Cornell, Ann Howard, Kristoer Whitney, Sandra Rothenberg, LaVerne McQuiller Williams, and James Winebrake. I deeply appreciate the work of the University of Georgia Press’s team of ed- itors, managers, and production associates, both past and present, especially Mick Gusinde-Duy, Derek Krisso, Andrew Berzanskis, Lynn Itagaki, Dan- iel Rivers, Jon Davies, Beth Snead, David Des Jardines, Sara Ash Georgi, Erin Kirk, Ihsan Taylor of Longleaf Services, and two extremely helpful anonymous reviewers. To the organizers and audience members of seminars at which I presented earlier versions of this work, thank you for your hospitality and helpful feed- back: Tom Lassman of the Smithsonian History Seminar on Contemporary Science and Technology; Eric Roorda, Glenn Gordinier, and Carol Mowrey of the Munson Institute of American Maritime Studies at Mystic Seaport; Betsy Mendelsohn and David Kirsch of the University of Maryland Colloquium in the History of Technology, Science, and Environment; Zachary Cuyler and Troy Vettese of the New York University Energy and the Le Workshop; the Johns Hopkins University Department of the History of Science and Technol- ogy Colloquium; the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute Barro Colorado Island Bambi Seminar; the Tri-University History Conference on Cold War En- counters; and the University of Connecticut–Avery Point Coastal Perspectives xiii Lecture Series. Thanks also to the organizers, panelists, and audience members of conference sessions at the American Association of Geographers, American Historical Association, American Society for Environmental History, Colum- bia History of Science Group, History of Science Society, North American So- ciety for Oceanic History, Rochester U.S. Historians, Society for the History of American Foreign Relations, and Society for the History of Technology. Many thanks to Ira Rubino, Alan Covich, Wayne Clough, William New- man, and other historical participants for sharing their insights with me. Any mistakes are of course my own. For their generous hospitality in Panama, muchas gracias to Noris Herrera, Susan Brewer-Osorio, Ariel Espino, Dan Norman, Stanley Heckadon-Moreno, Eg- bert Leigh, Rachel Collin, Héctor Guzmán, Harilaos Lessios, and Mark Torchin. Many archivists, librarians, and interlibrary loan o cers provided crucial sources, for which I am most appreciative. Thank you also to the program o - cers and support sta of the Smithsonian Institution Archives Postdoctoral Fel- lowship Program, National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend Program, Lyndon B. Johnson Foundation Moody Research Grant Program, and Eisenhower Foundation Abilene Travel Grants Program for providing critical funds and for believing in my project. I am also very grateful to the Roches- ter Institute of Technology College of Liberal Arts Miller Fellowship, Faculty Research Fellowship, and Publication Cost Grant Programs, and to the RIT Departments of STS and History. Deep thanks to my fantastic high school teachers and college professors for setting high standards of mentorship to which I have always aspired, especially Zeleana Morris, Rod Wallace, Kenneth Zachmann, Esther Iglich, Christianna Nichols Leahy, and Carole McCann. I am very blessed by my supportive family: Sonia, Matt, AJ, Greg, Dana, Ethan, Andrew, Samuel, Gabriel, Gary, Helen; my aunts, uncles, cousins, and late grandparents; and my wonderful mom, Vera. Thank you ADK for the loan of many history books! And the greatest thanks of all to my dear and loving husband, Darren Lacey. This book is dedicated in memory of Jim Keiner, taken