water passage

In a statement, the Suez Canal Authority, which oversees the operation of the key water passage, said its teams were working to recover the tugboat after it launched an operation to save the seven-person crew.

A major concern is that Lake Powell, behind Glen Canyon Dam near the Arizona-Utah border, could drop so low next year that it could no longer generate hydropower, and even water passage through the dam, downstream to the Grand Canyon and Lake Mead, could be affected.

Lewis and Clark were sent by President Thomas Jefferson to find a water passage to the Pacific Ocean.

In lieu of a water passage, boats have been hauled overland for centuries on a portage created by Periander.

Scudder Smith, a consultant with the engineering consulting firm Parsons Brinkerhoff, said that a water passage, “all things being equal, will cause cost reductions — but all things are not equal,” he added, and so “I’m not at all confident in any numbers.”