NAWAPA concept

The NAWAPA concept, officially known as the North American Water and Power Alliance, was a grand engineering vision proposed in the 1960s and 1970s alongside similar mega-projects like the GRAND Canal. NAWAPA aimed to redistribute freshwater from the abundant rivers of northern Canada and Alaska southward, using enormous reservoirs, dams, and canals to supply the western United States and northern Mexico with irrigation and drinking water.^[1][2]

Original Goals and Design

• The core NAWAPA proposal involved diverting flows from the Yukon, Peace, and Liard rivers, channeling water through the Rocky Mountain Trench, and creating vast artificial lakes in western Canada.^[1]
• Water would then flow south via a series of major dammed reservoirs to the arid regions of the southwestern United States and northern Mexico, dramatically altering the landscape and supporting agriculture, municipal use, and industry.
• Additional elements included canalizing rivers for navigation and energy production and possibly linking the water transfer network to allow oceangoing vessels to travel across the continent.^[1]

GRAND Canal (Related Project)

• The GRAND Canal (Great Recycling and Northern Development Canal), meanwhile, was a Canadian-led variant focused on damming James Bay to create a huge freshwater reservoir, then diverting this water south via canals to the Great Lakes and ultimately to water-deficit regions of North America.^[3][4][5]
• GRAND Canal as conceived would have involved a 160-kilometre dike, complex pumping systems, and canal infrastructure stretching hundreds of kilometers, consuming massive amounts of energy—potentially equal to Quebec’s entire electricity grid.^[5]
• Both NAWAPA and GRAND Canal were envisioned as solutions to long-term drought risk and declining water levels across North America’s agricultural heartland.^[2][3][5]

Impact and Controversy

• The scale of environmental impact would be profound, including flooding of vast Canadian land, major changes to hydrography, possible climatic effects, and disruption of Indigenous communities.^[1][5]
• Despite support from engineers and some political leaders, both projects were ultimately never built due to financial, ecological, and cross-border governance concerns.^[5][1]
• Occasional political interest resurfaces during periods of drought, but as of 2025, these remain examples of unrealized megaprojects that continue to inspire debate about continental freshwater management.^[3][6][5]

NAWAPA serves as a cautionary tale and a symbol of large-scale interbasin transfer ambition, highlighting both the technical potential and the immense social-environmental challenges associated with continental water movement schemes.^[3][1][5]

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• https://www.reddit.com/r/geography/comments/18a8zg4/financial_ecological_and_social_costs_aside_what/      
• http://sisis.nativeweb.org/sov/oh11dam.html  
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Recycling_and_Northern_Development_Canal    
• https://kids.kiddle.co/Great_Recycling_and_Northern_Development_Canal 
• http://www.nationnewsarchives.ca/article/grand-to-be-revived/       
• https://cela.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/fate-of-the-lakes.pdf 
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_export 
• https://canadians.org/analysis/kierans-grand-canal-water-export-plan/ 
• https://researchmoneyinc.com/article/the-future-of-canada-s-freshwater-amid-america-s-growing-thirst 
• https://dbpedia.org/page/Great_Recycling_and_Northern_Development_Canal