[1][2] The canal was built to bring water to the Kulunda Steppe, a region periodically subjected to severe droughts.

The project had been put forward at the beginning of the decade and aimed to irrigate 20,000 ha (49,421 acres) in the area of Novotroitsk, as well as Zlatopol, located further west near the Kazakhstan–Russia border.

The canal has become silted in some places with water overflowing its banks in heavy rain, leading to the flooding of inhabited areas.

But in the end only a 20 km (12 mi) length of canal sections were treated against filtration and the coating has a lifetime of about 30 years, which already ran out by the turn of the millennium.

The building of the canal disrupted the Gorkoye ecosystem by increasing the salinity of the lake and some fish species died out.