The Great Recycling & Northern Development Canal Proposal

[Lord Grattan]

The Great Recycling and Northern Development (GRAND) Canal of North America or GCNA was/is a water management proposal designed in the late 1950's to alleviate North American fresh water shortage problems: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Recycling_and_Northern_Development_Canal

The premise of the GCNA is that fresh water run-off from natural participation would be collected in James Bay by means of a series of outflow-only, sea level dikes - constructed across the northern end of James Bay. This would capture the fresh water before it mixed with the salty water of Hudson Bay. In the second phase of the Grand Canal proposal a percentage of the captured fresh water run-off would be transferred by a series of canals and pumping stations south to the Great Lakes where it would be available to be transferred to water deficit areas of Canada and the United States.


What if this plan had been brought to fruition?

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

well, it would be
1) bloody expensive
2) an environmental disaster for the James Bay area
3) a cultural disaster (the damage done to the locals, mostly Cree)

also, how much power would it take to pump that water south over the height of land and to overcome the friction losses in the pipes.

Yowza!

 

[cclittle]

Show me the money

How are we going to fund this? Investers from the US? Elect the NDP and heve the goverenment do it?

 

[knightdepaix]

The Great Recycling and Northern Development (GRAND) Canal of North America or GCNA was/is a water management proposal designed in the late 1950's to alleviate North American fresh water shortage problems. The premise of the GCNA is that fresh water run-off from natural participation would be collected in James Bay by means of a series of outflow-only, sea level dikes - constructed across the northern end of James Bay. This would capture the fresh water before it mixed with the salty water of Hudson Bay.

The whole proposal would need to be scaled down. Those dikes would be built across the mouth of the Harricana River --- the Hannah Bay, creating an artificial lake. The second phase remained the same but much less volume of freshwater run-off would be collected and pumped southward. Due to the scaling down, the proposal would cost much less and less coastal landmasses would be affected. In its essence, only the flowing direction of the water in the Harricana River would be reversed that the freshwater from that lake would use the river to flow southward. If a boat voyaged from the mouth of the Moose River to James Bay, the dikes would appear on the right or east side of the voyage.
Still, the question of "showing the money" is always existent.