Canals and waterways

[Stephane Dumas]

I thought of starting a thread about canals and waterways like the current ones like St. Lawrence seaway, Erie Canal, Chicago Sanitairy and Ship canal, Rideau canal,etc...and the late ones like Ohio & Erie canal, Miami & Erie canal and future ones like the Panama canal upgrades or even fictionnal ones located in our imaginations.

With the Asian carp invasion, which fate the Chicago canal will face?
 

[Landshark]

With the Asian carp invasion, which fate the Chicago canal will face?
 

A thriving future shipping fish (100% pure asian carp) fertilizer?

[Landshark]

America's canal system is much smaller than what it could have been due to the advent of the railroad so early in its history. 

The west coast, which developed post RR has very few canals (Lake Washington ship canal is one), but had it been developed sooner, there would have been a much more extensive system.  For example the Olympia area would have likely had a canal linking Puget Sound to Black Lake and the Chehalis River system, giving a transportation corridor to Grays Harbor and possibly even to the Columbia R. system via another canal.

Back east there are some ghost canals.  I have seen some of the remnants of the Delaware & Hudson Canal.   It is  a shame more are not still use, as some places are figuring out how to capitalize on canal tourism.  The Erie, Champlain, Mississippi River system and canals, Tenn-Tom waterway, intracoastal waterway, and some canals in Canada have successfully attracted recreational travelers. 

[Landshark]

... or even fictionnal ones located in our imaginations.

 

Imagine if we were to build a transcontinental canal, and had to "Gadsden Purchase" the mouth of the Pend Oreille River from Canada?

[agentsteel53]

should this go under "mass transit"?  canals are used by transiting vessels which (/me consults the laws of physics) indeed do have mass.

[Brandon]

I thought of starting a thread about canals and waterways like the current ones like St. Lawrence seaway, Erie Canal, Chicago Sanitairy and Ship canal, Rideau canal,etc...and the late ones like Ohio & Erie canal, Miami & Erie canal and future ones like the Panama canal upgrades or even fictionnal ones located in our imaginations.

With the Asian carp invasion, which fate the Chicago canal will face?
 

The Illinois Waterway needs to stay OPEN.  We know the cost of closing the waterway.  The carp may or may not have an effect on the Lakes.  Odds are, they're in the Lakes already via Ohio.