I am always suspicious of megaprojects, which tend to be mostly about national pride, political legacies, and trickle-down corruption. (This is true back home, too: witness Montreal’s crumbling Big Owe stadium, and the useless white mastodon that is Mirabel airport.) Well, projects don’t get much more mega than the Panama Canal. My favourite statistic from the Canal’s museum is that its excavation required 60 million pounds of dynamite. Whole wars have been fought with less.

I admit it’s hard to argue with the general usefulness of halving the seafaring distance between New York and San Francisco, but this Eighth Wonder of the World is not without its controversies. Its history provides useful illustrations for a checklist of megaproject dos and don’ts:

Don’t: Kill tens of thousands of people and then fail through stubborn incompetence. Really, this should be Rule One for any project, but nobody told the French, who in 1880 decided they would dig a sea-level canal across the isthmus, rather than building one with locks. 22,000 workers died, mostly from malaria and dengue fever. No canal was dug. The French tend not to talk about this episode much when itemizing the triumphs of their glorious history.

Don’t: Wreak international havoc. In 1904 the USA openly orchestrated Panama’s secession from Colombia so as to create a weak state they could more easily control. The Colombians are still a little bitter.

Don’t: Treat poor people with contempt. The existence of the US-controlled Canal Zone (where John McCain was born) was a fiery issue of national pride among Panamians for many years; there were student demonstrations, riots, and widespread hatred of all things American. Jimmy Carter finally agreed in 1977 to turn it over in 1999, and the Panamians have since done a bang-up job of managing their crown jewel.

Do: To quote Ronald Reagan, “Trust, but verify.” A little-known clause of the handover agreement allows the US to come back and retake control of the Canal any time they see fit. This provides a pretty good incentive for said bang-up job.

Do: Ensure there are incentives to protect the environment. 150 million litres of the Canal’s freshwater is released into the ocean with every ship that crosses, so in order to prevent erosion and maintain a ready supply of water, most of the Canal Zone is protected rainforest.

Do: Keep maintaining and improving your megaproject. Right now they’re building wider and deeper locks that will handle 50-metre wide “Panamax II” ships able to carry a staggering 12,000 shipping containers. (Today’s limit is 33 metres and 5,000.)

Do: Bring in the tourists, even when there’s nothing to see. I figured I would be almost alone during my visit to what is, basically, a big concrete tube with a couple of gates and valves, but the Miraflores Locks were teeming with hundreds of tourists, all forking over $8 to visit the (excellent) museum and watch a couple ships go by. Moral: you can sell anything, if it’s big enough.

Do: Offer the benefits of the project to anyone, on a sliding scale. Power from Gatun Dam lights much of Panama City. The toll paid to traverse the canal has ranged from US$331,000 for the cruise ship Disney Magic to 36 cents by one Richard Halliburton, who swam the canal in 1928. History does not record where he kept his change.