Wants To Finish Canal By Dredging.

New York Times 100 years ago today, June 12, 1913:
Col. Goethals in Washington to Urge President to Turn on the Water July 1.
TO ATTACK CULEBRA SLIDE
Held That Dredging Will Save Both Time and Money and Insure Sending Vessels Through This Year.
Special to The New York Times.
    WASHINGTON, June 11.— The main purpose of Col. George W. Goethals's visit to Washington at this time is to confer with President Wilson and obtain his consent that the water shall be turned into the Panama Canal in order that suction dredges may be set to work at once to reduce the slide deposits at Culebra and make it possible to send vessels through the canal this year.
    It is recognized among engineers that the crux of the whole problem of canal completion is Culebra. If the work remaining to be done there can be negotiated this Summer the canal can be opened next Fall. If not then the work must drag over into another year.
    There are now thirty-two steam shovels at work at Culebra, thirteen of which are busy on slide material, and at the present rate of progress it will take seven or eight months to accomplish the amount of excavation that must be done at that point. Of the whole amount of excavation on the canal, more than one-third has to be done at Culebra. The total is 91,000,000 yards at Culebra, while that of the entire canal has been 195,000,000. There are now, counting the deposit from slides, 7,500,000 yards to be removed at Culebra.
    The plan has been to keep on with steam shovel excavation until Oct. 1, by which time probably 5,500,000 cubic yards would have been removed, leaving something like 2,000,000 yards to be taken out by the suction dredges. These dredges were to be placed in operation Oct. 1, when the water was to be turned in.
    It costs only 3 cents and a fraction a cubic yard to excavate with the suction dredges, and about two and a half times that to take material out with the shovels. If the water were turned into the canal July 1, Col. Goethals would be able to employ several large seagoing dredges that have been engaged on harbor improvements at the canal terminis and greatly accelerate the rate of progress at Culebra. It is expected that by Jan. 1 two new dipper dredges that are being constructed under contract could be set at work, while the canal would be practically open for use. These dipper dredges are to have a capacity of fifteen cubic yards, and will take out material at a depth of fifty feet below the water surface. These powerful machines, it is asserted, would make short work of the practical completion of the canal.
    It is known that there is objection to the plan of turning the water into the canal at this time. There is a disposition in official quarters in Washington to think that this objection arises to some extent from the desire to prolong the period of construction in order that many persons may not be thrown out of employment.