According to a recent report in La Prensa, a newspaper in Managua that usually takes a stance against the Daniel Ortega administration, the controversial highway construction project parallel to the San Juan River in Costa Rica hides an ulterior purpose: A dry canal that will not only connect our Caribbean coast with the Pacific, but will also include the building of an industrial dock in Playa Ostional, as well as a new oil pipeline.

Such were the allegations of National Forum of Recycling (FONARE in Spanish) and the Association of Volunteer Attorneys of Nicaragua. The two civil groups made the decrying revelations during a press conference yesterday. FONARE is a civil group that supports the claims by the government of Nicaragua before the Central American Court of Justice concerning the alleged environmental damage by Costa Rica to the San Juan River due to the ongoing road construction.

The allegations do not stop with the dry canal. The civil groups also claim that Amega, one of the firms working on the project, has been greasing the palms of the current administration to the tune of $13 million to get them to eliminate environmental laws that may get in the way of completing the project. The fact that President Laura Chinchilla demanded the resignation of the former Minister of Transport and Public Works over revelations of corruption and irregularities associated with the project was not lost on the two Nicaraguan groups. They claimed that the Minister’s dismissal is just a smokescreen intended to hide greater misdeeds.

What the two groups did not explain is why Costa Rica would build a dry canal on her widest stretch of land between oceans, when the docks in Moin and Caldera already serve that purpose and are connected by network of roads. There is also the problem of Playa Ostional being a protected area for the conservation of the nesting patterns of the Olive ridley turtle, a marine species that is heavily protected by the community.

The next court hearing in the environmental damage claim by Nicaragua against Costa Rica will take place this Thursday. The case against Nicaragua over the infamous Google Maps invasion is awaiting resolution by the International Court of Justice at The Hague.