San Mateo County

In hundreds of communities across the state, the water coming out of the tap is still not drinkable. Many of these places are small, rural, and economically disadvantaged — the bulk of them are located in the Central Valley. But the Bay Area isn’t immune, and the solutions aren’t easy.

All week long we've been playing this sound, and asking you to guess what exactly it is and where exactly in the Bay Area we recorded it.

All week long we've been playing this sound, and asking you to guess what exactly it is and where exactly in the Bay Area we recorded it.

For Jamaisse Payne, the grocery store is a math problem. She’s got a baby boy due in a few weeks, so she says she’s shopping and eating for two. She walks up and down the aisles of the Redwood City Grocery Outlet, adding and subtracting prices in her head.