Crains Chicago Business: Opinion: Cameron Davis

In the Chicago region, we're defined by water. It connects all of us, just as Lake Michigan and its rivers are connected. But like a lot of urban areas around the country, the Chicago metro area counts on federal resources to protect the public, ecological and economic health linked to our waterways, including one of our most underappreciated: the Chicago Sanitary & Ship Canal that runs south-southwest in Cook County.

Nearly a half-million gallons of non-road-grade liquid asphalt spilled into the canal this year. Under normal circumstances, this would be troubling, but federal resources could help address the problem quickly and effectively. Unfortunately, these aren't normal circumstances. Trump budget and staffing cuts undermine our municipal-state-federal efforts to respond to crises like these.

Though petroleum-based asphalt has its benefits for transportation, in the wrong place, asphalt is poison to life. Asphalt and water don't go together. Asphalt and aquatic life don't go together. Asphalt and public health definitely don't go together.

Asphalt isn't something that's safe for human exposure, according to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention. Likewise, studies by the University of New Hampshire show that aquatic life suffers from asphalt exposure. And we rely on aquatic life for recreation and food for our families. Fish and wildlife have died from the spill's exposure, but public information is tough to find with the Trump information blackout.

In colder months, asphalt ingredients can settle into river bottoms, where they can make their way through sediment-dwelling organisms to fish and, potentially, from fish to the people who eat them. Children, with higher metabolisms that lead to faster processing of whatever they eat, and subsistence anglers, who eat more fish as a cheap protein source, can be most at risk from exposure. Women of childbearing years can, likewise, be at higher risk. As we head into colder months with asphalt settling, these exposure pathways matter even more.

Asphalt manufacturing shouldn't be a worn-out old jobs-vs.-environment argument, either. That was discredited long ago and carries even less weight now that safer alternatives to asphalt are increasingly in use. These options provide jobs just as well without sacrificing human and environmental health.

Also long ago, federal agencies were empowered to respond to emergency spills, partly because state agencies had limited capacity to manage them; municipalities and municipal agencies like ours, even less so. Plus, while every emergency spill may be different, spill responses have common patterns and federal agencies are in the best position to capitalize on them.

But as Trump's cuts began to kick in earlier this year, so did limitations to feds' ability to clean up spills across the country, including the Petroleum Fuel & Terminal spill along the canal. Despite the heroic effort of federal staff — often working in nearly 100-degree weather and for long hours — resource cuts put more weight on other federal staff not subject to "administrative leave" or, worse, termination. Harmful chemicals stay in water and sediment, putting public and environmental health at prolonged risk.

Fortunately, we're not helpless to combat these threats:

• Our federal representatives like U.S. Rep. Chuy Garcia are doing everything they can with one arm tied behind their back. Culpability rests completely with red-district members of Congress who continue to fail to be a bulwark against harmful White House funding clawbacks. Tell your relatives in red-state districts that Trump's cuts endanger your community's health.

• Keep state and local agencies accountable for recovering all taxpayer costs from the spill. The burden of cleaning up these spills should not be on our shoulders as taxpayers.

• In the long run, we have to stop thinking about our waterways as expendable. They're not. While the canal was originally conceived as an artery for waste conveyance, today it's a quality-of-life asset. Efforts led by Friends of the Chicago River and other nonprofit leaders are inviting ideas for renaming the canal. Suggestions are welcome here.

Maybe changing the name from the "canal" will help all of us to think of it as something better for our health and those we share the planet with — and in turn, help us re-prioritize what's most important to all of us: our families' and communities' health.

Cameron Davis is a commissioner at the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District and was President Barack Obama's “Great Lakes czar.”