Although many people make their living from its waters, the area is one of the poorest in the state, and local politicians favor developing the river as an industrial waterway.

After the war, decline of trade on all remaining canals was rapid, and by the mid 1960s only a token traffic was left, even on the widest and most industrial waterways.

Vernam Basin, an industrial waterway in Jamaica Bay at Arverne, is also named in his honor.

As a rebranding of Britain's industrial waterways as leisure destinations, it has encouraged usage and promoted restoration.

It is both a recreational and industrial waterway.

Due to the constraints placed on the canal by its incomplete design, the Ellesmere Canal struggled financially throughout its operating life as an industrial waterway.

It crosses the Sankey Canal, which is claimed to be the world's first purpose-built industrial waterway.

Initially used for transport of agricultural product from Hertfordshire, this later became an important industrial waterway connecting the heavily industrialised Lea Valley with the docks.

During the second half of the nineteenth century it became a major industrial waterway, bounded along most of its length by retaining walls, the shipping channel maintained by dredging.

Parts of the Des Plaines River preserved in a mostly natural state are used for conservation and recreation, while substantially altered sections serve as an important industrial waterway and drainage channel.