Hudson Bay drainage basin
The Hudson Bay drainage basin is the drainage basin in northern North America where surface water empties into Hudson Bay and adjoining waters. Spanning an area of about , the basin is almost totally in Canada (spanning parts of the Prairies, central and northern Canada), with a small portion in the United States (in Montana, the Dakotas, and Minnesota). The watershed's headwaters are in part on the Continental Divide of the Americas, and the watershed's connection to the Labrador Sea is at the Hudson Strait's mouth between Resolution Island in the Qikiqtaaluk Region and Cape Chidley on the Labrador Peninsula. On the Continental Divide the basin is bounded at Triple Divide Peak to the south, and Snow Dome to the north.
Great Recycling and Northern Development Canal
In his GCNA proposal, Kierans asserts that experience in the Netherlands demonstrates that a large new freshwater source can be created in Canada's James Bay by collecting runoff from many adjacent river basins in a sea level, outflow-only dyke-enclosure. The project would capture and make available for recycling the entire outflows of the La Grande, Eastmain, Rupert, Broadback, Nottaway, Harricana, Moose, Albany, Kapiskau, Attawapiskat and Ekwan rivers.
Moreover, Kierans claims that the California Aqueduct proves that runoff to James Bay can be beneficially recycled long distances and over high elevations via the GRAND Canal. The GCNA would stabilize water levels in the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River and improve water quality. The GRAND Canal system would also deliver new fresh water from the James Bay dyke-enclosure, via the Great Lakes, to many water deficit areas in Canada and the United States. The project was estimated in 1994 to cost C$100 billion to build and a further C$1 billion annually to operate, involving a string of nuclear reactors and hydroelectric dams to pump water uphill and into other water basins.