Ecocanal

The Nicaraguan Ecocanal is a proposed project in Nicaragua to build a shallow-draft waterway connecting the inland Lake of Nicaragua with the Caribbean Sea via the San Juan river in the south of the country. The main aim of the waterway is to provide a maritime alternative to the lengthy overland journeys that are presently required to import and export containerised cargoes through the ports of Puerto Cortes in Honduras and Puerto Limon in Costa Rica.

Construction of the waterway will allow the passage of ocean-going barges that can be loaded at a new lake port to be built in the Lake of Nicaragua, and discharged at upriver ports within the United States taking advantage of the extensive inland waterway system, including the Mississippi river and the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, that already exists in the United States. An exploration concession Ley 319 for the project was unanimously approved by Nicaragua's National Assembly in 1999.

The economic advantage of the project is that it will eliminate transshipment costs at import and export ports, as well as the long road journeys to reach these ports, thereby offering significant cost savings in the overall freight charge. Barges can be loaded directly close to the point of manufacture, and discharged within a couple of hundred kilometres of the final point of delivery. Transport cost savings are estimated at more than US$1,000 per FEU (forty-foot equivalent container).

The San Juan river is 200 kilometres long. The total waterway length from a lakeport in the vicinity of Granada/Tipitapa on the northern shore of the Lake of Nicaragua, to the outlet of the San Juan river at San Juan del Norte, is some 360 kilometres. The principal obstacles to navigation are six sets of rapids along the river, and sand bars in shallower parts of the river. Average channel depth in the river during the dry season is around six feet (1.83m), with variations from around one foot (0.30m) to over 30 feet (9.14m). The average width of the river is some 200 metres.

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