Saturday, May 16, 2009

Could Bolivia build a tunnel to the Pacific?

Once, a long time ago, Bolivia had a coastline, accessing the Pacific Ocean through the mineral-rich Department of Litoral. But then Bolivia fought a war with neighboring Chile for control of the territory - Bolivia lost not only the war but control over Litoral and access to the sea as well.

Now a trio of Chilean architects have come up with a plan to once again give Bolivia access to the Pacific, via a nearly 100-mile long tunnel to an artificial island. The proposed tunnel would snake along the Peru-Chile border, delivering road and rail traffic to an artificial island created in the Pacific from soil dug out of the tunnel's path. The tunnel could also carry pipelines for oil and natural gas as well.

There are a few problems with the plan though, beyond the obvious ones of the outrageous cost and technical difficulties involved in building a 100-mile tunnel: the exact border between Peru and Chile is still under dispute, and the new island would be smack in the middle of both countries territorial waters, another area of disagreement between the two sides.

The architects though say that these are political problems that can be solved and point out that other cross-border tunnels around the world have been vehicles to bring nations together.
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