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Short Takes
November/December 2007
Lumberjacking the Hard Way: Underwater
Alaskan contractor dives into Panama Canal lakes to lead a $14-million hardwood harvest
By Tom Nicholson
Lumberjacks and scuba divers aren’t two occupations
typically associated with one another, but on a unique
project under way at the Panama Canal, an AGC of Alaska
firm is combining the two jobs to accomplish an uncommon
mission.
When the Panama Canal was built in 1904, locks and dams
constructed as part of the canal project created two large
lakes, the 164-sq-mile Lake Gatun and 200-sq-mile Lake
Bayano. The lakes submerged thousands of hardwood trees
as hundreds of square miles of jungle valleys were flooded.
Those trees represent about 400 million board ft of tropical
hardwood timber standing in up to 65 ft of water.
That’s where Anchorage-based Gunderboom Inc. comes in.
The marine construction firm, which has a wide range of
capabilities, last year won a $14-million contract from
Panamanian firm Ardan International Group, a vendor
representing the Panama Canal Authority, to harvest the
submerged timber over the next five years.
The Gunderboom staff of divers is made up largely of
Panamanians trained on the job to “fell” the trees with
hydraulically operated chainsaws and float them to the
surface with airbags, says Gunderboom President Hal
Dreyer.
“We started our phase one investigation of the project in
January 2006 and now have about 45 people working,”
Dreyer says. “As things ramp up over the next few months,
we’ll have as many as 400 workers on the project.”
The firm is currently working on designing equipment to
mechanize the timber harvesting, in which an operator will
use a 65-ft boom attached to a backhoe, floated on a barge,
to saw the trees. “We expect to have that in operation in the
next six months,” says Dreyer. “But we will never completely Lakes Gatun and Bayano contain thousands of still-
do away with the use of divers.” standing trees that offer quality timber submerged for
decades and now being brought to the surface. Dozens
of species of valuable jungle hardwoods being
The murky waters mean obstacles for divers, but harvested from within the lakes are saving acres of
Gunderboom has tapped the diving talent of the Kuna jungle habitat from being denuded for logging.
 Constructor Magazine - A publication of the AGC

Indians, a tribe indigenous to Panama, whose underwater

skills are a boon to the project. “They are remarkable free divers,” Dreyer says. “We train them how to saw the
trees, but they already have a long tradition of diving in their culture, and they take to the work easily.”

Roger “Red” Kinney, of Gunderboom’s sales department, who

Panamanian divers will fell recently returned from a month in Panama observing operations,
the trees with hydraulically says the Kunas’ skills are “amazing. They can free dive without
operated chainsaws and a tank for up to four minutes at a time.”
then float them to the
Kinney says divers first tether a deflated airbag to the tree trunk,
surface with airbags. then inflate the bag before sawing it off at the stump, which
floats the tree to the surface.

Because of the strength and hardness of the submerged trees, they have withstood rotting, and the timber
harvested is as solid and useable as that from trees on land, says Dreyer. The project is an example of how to
harvest valuable timber without denuding precious jungle environments.

“For every tree we harvest, that is one less tree that has to be cut down in the forest,” Kinney says.

Lakes Gatun and Bayano, created when the Panama Canal was built, contain thousands of still-
standing trees that offer quality timber submerged for decades and now being brought to the
surface.

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