We do not need another generation lost to preventable illness, impaired development, and early mortality because of toxic water and unhealthy meals. It’s long past time for action. The resources exist. What’s missing is the will to act
Perhaps nowhere is Mayor Brandon Johnson’s neglect of Chicago’s poorest communities more evident than in his failure to confront the public health crisis unfolding across the South and West Sides — one driven by contaminated water and a broken food system. These environmental hazards disproportionately affect Black and Latino residents, costing lives, shortening futures, and deepening the inequities that define daily life in Chicago.
The failure to address this public health crisis is not a problem of money; it is a problem of will. The city possesses both the funding and technical capacity to act decisively. What’s missing is the political courage to make environmental justice something more than campaign rhetoric.
An illness rooted in neglect
Despite lofty promises to make Chicago a model of environmental equity, the Johnson administration’s accomplishments thus far amount to little more than symbolism. The restoration of the Chicago Department of Environment (CDOE) has been mostly on paper. Its “air quality monitoring” initiative has no meaningful enforcement power, and the so-called Green Housing Ordinance — pitched as a sustainability milestone — largely creates a city-affiliated nonprofit developer without a comprehensive affordable housing strategy.
Meanwhile, the health consequences of environmental neglect are staggering. The Chicago Department of Public Health and a 2023 NYU Langone Health study found Chicago has the largest life expectancy gap between neighborhoods of any major American city. Asian and Pacific Islander residents live, on average, to 86.8 years; Black residents average only 71.8. In The Loop, the average lifespan reaches 87 years, but in West Garfield Park it falls to just 66. That 20-year gulf is the measure of institutional failure — not fate.
These disparities are inseparable from the environmental conditions shaping daily life: Unsafe drinking water, food deserts, and a built environment that perpetuates chronic illness. Poor nutrition, lead exposure, and chemical contamination are engines of disease — and, in children, barriers to learning and cognitive development. Addressing these environmental factors is a public health mandate, an educational imperative, and a moral obligation.
Contaminated water: A generational threat
For decades, Chicago has ignored a silent epidemic. Tens of thousands of the city’s youngest residents are drinking water contaminated with lead and industrial chemicals. The science is clear: No level of lead exposure is safe. Even trace amounts impair brain development, slow growth, and damage learning and behavior.
According to a 2024 analysis by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 68 percent of Chicago children under age six live in homes where tap water has detectable lead levels. These findings — drawn from 38,000 water samples collected between 2016 and 2023 — confirm what parents already fear: The danger is pervasive.
Lead exposure is directly linked to reduced IQ, attention deficits, and lower standardized test scores. Research also connects childhood lead poisoning to higher rates of violent crime decades later. In 2007, economist Rick Nevin demonstrated strong correlations between lead exposure and violent offenses across multiple nations. Subsequent research reinforced that declines in environmental lead coincide with sharp declines in crime, underscoring clean air and water are not just health issues — they are public safety issues too.
Lead, however, is not the only hazard. A 2024 Chicago Tribune investigation revealed widespread contamination from PFAS (“forever chemicals”) in water supplies across Illinois, including Chicago. PFAS compounds are linked by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to liver damage, infertility, and cancers, and persist indefinitely in both the environment and human tissue. The EPA has determined no safe exposure level exists for certain PFAS varieties.
Despite this, Chicago’s Department of Water Management has said it will not upgrade treatment systems to remove PFAS unless required by federal mandate — a bureaucratic evasion that mirrors the city’s slow motion on replacing lead service lines. Nearly 400,000 such lines remain active in Chicago, yet by the city’s own admission, less than one-half of one percent have been replaced. At the current pace, the effort would stretch across five centuries.
Regulatory failures compound the harm. Federal rules required the city to notify roughly 900,000 residents by late 2024 that their water may be contaminated with lead. As of mid-2024, WBEZ reported that only seven percent had received notices. That is not miscommunication — it is concealment.
Food deserts: Malnutrition by design
On Chicago’s South and West Sides, entire neighborhoods exist without a single full-service grocery store. These “food deserts” have devastating health consequences. Rates of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and diet-related cancers soar where residents lack access to affordable, nutritious food.
The Chicago Health Atlas shows that in food-insecure areas, diabetes mortality is more than double the citywide average. Poor nutrition also fuels childhood obesity and cognitive deficits that hinder classroom success. Children who lack balanced diets struggle to concentrate, perform worse on literacy and math assessments, and experience higher rates of chronic absenteeism due to preventable illness.
This is what the “food balance effect” describes: a neighborhood saturated with fast food and convenience stores, but starved of fresh produce and affordable groceries. In Garfield Park and Englewood, the density of fast-food outlets is almost four times greater than in Lincoln Park, while full-service grocery options are less than one-fifth as common.
The Johnson administration announced vague interest in exploring city-owned grocery models but failed to apply for state funding in 2024, forfeiting millions in potential support. Meanwhile, national grocers withdrew from disinvested corridors citing security and cost concerns — leaving residents to rely on gas station markets and dollar stores for food.
The path to clean water
Chicago’s water infrastructure crisis can be mitigated — quickly — with a combination of direct aid and bureaucratic reform.
1. Distribute filtration systems immediately. Every home, school, childcare center, and restaurant should receive or have access to certified water filters that remove lead and PFAS.
2. Accelerate lead service line replacement. The city has drawn less than one-third of its $325 million federal loan allocated for this purpose, which expires next year. The work can be expedited using trenchless replacement technologies already proven in other cities.
3. Mandate full disclosure. Every affected household deserves to know its water risk status. The city should launch a bilingual notification campaign and a centralized online map updated weekly.
4. Empower the Department of Environment. The CDOE must have enforcement authority and sufficient funding to oversee remediation and hold contractors accountable.
The fiscal argument does not hold water. According to WTTW, only $70–90 million of the $325 million lead replacement fund has been used. Additional municipal bonding authority of over $130 million remains untouched. Directing a fraction of those resources toward household filtration and rapid infrastructure replacement would deliver measurable, life-saving results.
The path to healthy food
Other U.S. cities have demonstrated public-local partnerships can restore food security. Municipal involvement in the marketplace is not revolutionary — publicly owned utilities provide water, power, and broadband internet access across the country. Chicago can apply the same principle to essential services like food access.
Under a “contracted public food enterprise” model, the city could partner with established grocery operators — Jewel, Mariano’s, Whole Foods, Pete’s Market — to open community-serving stores in food deserts. Contracts would provide tax exemptions (property, sales, and local fees) to ensure profitability. In return, operators would commit to local hiring, fair pricing, and produce sourcing from regional farms.
Once each store achieves financial sustainability, ownership could transition gradually to community cooperatives or local nonprofits. A portion of revenues could circulate directly back into neighborhood development funds.
Simultaneously, the city should promote urban agriculture by reforming zoning regulations to allow vacant lots to be used for farming, establishing seasonal water-rate programs for growers, and investing in cold-storage and distribution infrastructure to connect urban farmers to school and restaurant contracts.
Public schools also have a critical role to play. CPS should be required not only to serve three nutritious meals daily, but also to contract with local restaurants and culinary businesses rather than rely solely on mega-providers serving highly processed, low-quality meals. This shift would both improve nutrition and stimulate the small-business ecosystem that employs tens of thousands of Chicagoans.
Finally, the city should leverage Federal Opportunity Zone tax incentives — currently underutilized — to attract private investment for food access projects in high-need communities. With proper coordination, this could anchor a sustainable ecosystem linking food retailers, local growers, and educational institutions.
What Chicago must decide
Contaminated water and unhealthy food are not abstract challenges. They are daily emergencies — especially for the city’s poorest children, who cannot learn on empty stomachs or reach their potential under chronic exposure to toxins. The moral and economic costs of inaction are immense: Lost productivity, lower academic achievement, increased healthcare expenditures, and preventable deaths.
Chicago has the funding, science, and expertise to act now. What it lacks is urgency. If environmental justice is to mean anything, it must start with ensuring every child can drink safe water and eat healthy food. We do not need another generation lost to preventable illness, poor development, and a shortened lifespan because of lead and other toxins in the water and the lack of healthy meals.
The blueprint is clear. The resources exist. What’s missing is the will to act.
