Today a lot of the business that once was all along the banks of the river are now few. Ships will still travel the river to drop of materials and pick some up as well but there are few companies needing to use the lake to transport materials.
One ship navigates up the river and has to move around another ship, past a bridge and then after passing all of that the boat will need to make a sharp turn to continue up river.
This Bill Roberts cartoon entitled "Asleep in the Deep" satyrically points out the inadequacy of the Water Pollution Control Board to prevent the accumulation of pollution violations in 1968.