In 2012, California made history when it became the first U.S. state to declare that clean drinking water is a human right. But five years later, nearly 300 communities still shouldn’t drink their water, according to new state data—and more than half of the 400,000 impacted residents live in the San Joaquin Valley.
In this series, our reporters visit these communities, speak with residents, and explore the challenges to obtaining safe, clean drinking water.
If you have a personal account or story about contaminated water in your area of California email us at eromero@kvpr.org or kklein@kvpr.org.
To find out if the water in your community is contaminated, click through the map below.
This post is an abbreviated version of the Contaminated page. You can find the full series here.