SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico Even a little rain threatens Lucy Cruz with what feels like biblical wrath.

When the skies open up as they often do the Cao Martn Pea, a nearly four-mile canal that connects San Juan Bay to two lagoons in the middle of Puerto Rico s sprawling capital city, floods into her neighborhood. And with the floodwaters come rats, trash and human feces, flowing through the winding streets. Cruz is one of 26,000 people who live in the communities some of the citys poorest that nestle along the channel.

The canal is a literal cesspool. The Environmental Protection Agency found fecal bacteria there in concentrations of 1.5 million colonies per 100 milliliters of water, which is 7,500 times the level considered safe. Asthma rates for children under 5 living near the canal are twice the average for the rest of Puerto Rico. The National Institutes of Health found that the likelihood of suffering diarrheal diseases and mosquito-borne dengue infections surges the closer someone lives to the channel.

The risk of floods increases as climate change raises sea levels and exacerbates storms, and it threatens the nearby Luis Muoz Marn International Airport, a vital hub for people and goods on an island dependent almost entirely on imports from the mainland.

The solution to the problem is straightforward: The canal needs to be dredged.

Yet Senate Republicans nixed money earmarked for the canal during the latest row over relief funding as President Donald Trump launched new attacks on Puerto Rico, accusing the debt-strangled territorial government of abusing disaster aid. The canal had issues before hurricanes Irma and Maria made landfall in September 2017, but the Federal Emergency Management Administrations rules limit disaster funds to rebuilding what was destroyed, not making improvements. And as it is, that funding is just trickling in a year and a half after the storms, and the channel waits in a long line of infrastructure in need of upgrades.

The fate of the canal, say advocates and policymakers, shows exactly why the United States needs a Green New Deal. Puerto Ricos high unemployment rate and natural affinity for renewable energy already match up with the idea of a national plan to ramp up clean energy manufacturing and provide millions of good-paying jobs. But the Green New Deals promise of salvation for impoverished communities at risk from extreme weather and sea level rise is what fits so well with this trash-strewn channel.

The Cao Martn Pea is a perfect example of a long-neglected capital project in a historically disadvantaged area that faces bigger risks as the world warms. The canal needs public works funding and planning to protect San Juan from climate change. The locals need good-paying jobs. And lawmakers in Washington need a testing ground for an expansive program to safeguard Americans against the travails of worsening global warming and poverty.