WalleyeWarrior

The barges were just a little less than a few meters wide. The manpower to build a 100km long canal that is 2.5-3 meters wide is substantially less than what it takes to dig one 8 meters wide in the era before steam shovels.

Not really. Most of these old canals were only a couple yards/meters wide and dried up 100 years ago.

Economics were good if you lived in a western country. Former Soviet Block, Yugoslavia, and global South countries were having a rough go of thing in the 90s

This is Ohio man, we draw our drinking water from the same rivers and lakes that the town upstream dumps their treated sewage into