I've never been able to find water maple listed as an official common name for any of the native maples. But I've heard many around here use water maple as a broad term to cover any maple... I usually couldn't get them to narrow it down to a particular type of maple. So, starting from the top, there's 4 maples native to WV that get to the size you're seeing:
Sugar
Black
Red
Silver
I usually don't associate sugar maple with wet areas. And black maple prefers even drier areas than sugar maple. Both of these are sold as sugar maple.
Red and silver don't mind getting their feet wet. But it's usually red maple I see more often along stream banks around here.
All 4 maples are easy to tell apart. Black maple is rare and has a distinct droop shape to its leaves. They allmost look like they're stressed for water and are starting to wilt. The leaves are larger than sugar maple and are darker green.
Silver maple has deeper flutes in the mature leaves. And the leaves present a silvery underside in the wind. This is the tree that most often appears in yards as a landscape tree. It grows fast, takes on a poor form when open grown, and holds up poorly to wind, etc. Most consider it a junk tree that the developer planted becasue it grows fast. Not much better than a bradford pear.
Red maple has a short leaf stem and the stem itself has a red hue to it. I've seen surgar maple also have a red hue to the stems on some of the leaves but the stems on red maple is much shorter. Also, the leaf buds on red maple are red.
You can find out more here:
WV maples
Narrow the id down...then we can talk uses. If you have trouble with the id then post some pictures of the both sides of the leaves, some of the twigs, and several of the bark. (I'm not very good at sorting maple bark.)