Water-saving basins in ship locks
The lateral basins at the expanded Panama Canal locks that reuse a share of each lockage, how the saving is measured, and what it does not mean.
A water-saving basin is a shallow lateral reservoir alongside a lock chamber that captures part of the chamber’s water as it empties and returns it by gravity on the next filling. The expanded Panama Canal locks carry three basins per chamber, nine per lock complex and 18 across Agua Clara and Cocoli, and the Panama Canal Authority states they reuse up to 60 percent of the water in each lockage.
The full article will explain what that 60 percent is measured against, which is the consumption of the same large chamber without basins rather than the consumption of the smaller original locks, since the distinction is the most commonly misreported fact about the expansion. It will also cover cross filling between paired lanes as the alternative conservation technique used at the original locks, and the measured per transit consumption the Authority publishes each fiscal year.