The Panama Canal Authority (ACP) plans to invest $82 million in the Rio Indio reservoir project during the 2027 fiscal year. ^[1] The Panama Canal restricted daily vessel transits to 34 starting this Thursday to conserve fresh water supplied by two lakes suffering from a lack of rainfall associated with El Niño. ^[2] Ilya Espino de Marotta, the incoming administrator of the ACP, stated that the $82 million will fund initial family resettlement, compensation, and the bidding for the dam's design and construction. ^[3] The ACP intends to begin construction in 2028, with 2027 dedicated to necessary preparatory processes. ^[4] The future reservoir will have a surface area of 4,600 hectares and a storage capacity of approximately 1.5 billion cubic meters of water. ^[5] Daily slots for neopanamax locks were reduced to nine and panamax locks to 25, totaling 34 transits, with a further reduction to 32 transits scheduled for September 15. ^[6] On Thursday morning, 99 ships were queued to cross the waterway, including 26 neopanamax vessels and five without reservation. ^[7] This restriction is the first since the 2023 water crisis, which limited traffic to 22 daily transits at the end of that year due to El Niño. ^[8]