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Message to the Congress Transmitting the Fourth Annual Report of the Atlantic-Pacific Interoceanic Canal Study Commission.

September 05, 1968

To the Congress of the United States:

I am transmitting the fourth annual report of the Atlantic-Pacific Interoceanic Canal Study Commission. The report covers the period July 1, 1967 to June 30, 1968.

During the past twelve months the Commission has made significant progress toward accomplishing the objectives of its investigation. The collection of data was substantially completed on Route 17 in Panama, one of the routes being considered for nuclear excavation. In the Canal Zone, subsurface drilling for geological data was completed and an evaluation made of the suitability and cost of conventional canal excavation along Route 14. In Colombia the first full year of data collection on Route 25 was accomplished.

The Commission has decided on a more extensive study of Route 10, a route for conventional excavation in the Republic of Panama close to the westerly limits of the Canal Zone. Extensive engineering measures would be required to insure the continued operation of the existing lock canal during the years of construction of a sea-level canal adjacent to and intersecting it. Also, the change-over to a sea-level canal on Route 14 would permanently close the existing canal. Route 10 would not have these disadvantages and could be competitive in cost. For these reasons, the Commission has now augmented its subsurface data collection program to produce a valid estimate of excavation costs on this route.

The Atomic Energy Commission has recently conducted the first two of the planned series of nuclear excavation experiments designed to determine the feasibility of nuclear excavation of a sea-level canal. The favorable results of these experiments are encouraging. Funds in the FY 1969 budget will permit continuation of this test program. I hope that the experiments will demonstrate the practical possibility of using this technique in building a new canal.

On June 22, 1968, I signed Public Law 90-359 in which the Congress granted an extension of the Commission's reporting date to December 1, 1970 and the additional appropriation authority needed by the Commission to complete its investigation. With this amending legislation, the Commission is now able to carry out its field surveys in both Panama and Colombia as originally planned to accomplish the mission given it by the Congress in Public Law 88-609.

The investigation has provided no final conclusions to date. However, no insurmountable technical problems are foreseen in the construction of a sea-level isthmian canal by conventional means. The best location for a new canal and the technical and political feasibility of construction by nuclear excavation are yet to be determined.

This anniversary sees the canal investigation well beyond the midpoint of its planned studies, and I take great pleasure in forwarding the Commission's fourth annual report to the Congress.

LYNDON B. JOHNSON

The White House

September 5, 1968

Note: The report (12 pp. and appendixes) is entitled "Fourth Annual Report of the Atlantic-Pacific Interoceanic Canal Study Commission," dated July 31, 1968.

Lyndon B. Johnson, Message to the Congress Transmitting the Fourth Annual Report of the Atlantic-Pacific Interoceanic Canal Study Commission. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/237569

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