This map (from 2015) shows sites with the most TCE groundwater contamination. Bay Area is actually quite clean. LA is completely fucked though
The vast majority of the Bay Area population gets its water either from the Hetch Hetchy (SF, South Bay, Peninsula) or the Mokelumne River watershed (East Bay). This is surface water that is mostly clear of VOCs which is why nothing shows up on the map for the Bay Area that you shared.
For a more accurate representation of the state of the groundwater in the Bay Area, see this map of chemical plumes (hint they're everywhere) [2].
[1] https://www.epa.gov/vaporintrusion/what-vapor-intrusion
[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20141120123953/http://www.nbcbay...
> The Oakland Unified School district announced the temporary closure of the McClymonds to test for the chemical tricloroethylene (TCE), which was found in groundwater under the campus.
> "This is West Oakland and so there is a history of environmental injustice, of racial injustice that happens in this community. So these are places where there are leaks, there are dumps, there are things like that that are not healthy for our community," said Jumoke Hinton Hodge, Oakland Board of Education District 3 Director.
> McClymonds has recently seen a handful of students and former students develop cancer, including the high-profile cases Darryl Aikens, a McClymonds football player who died of leukemia a month after graduating in 2017, as well as 2018 graduate Ramone Sanders, who died of cancer last fall. Sanders was playing football at Laney College when he broke his leg and it was discovered he had bone cancer that spread to his lungs.
Honestly I am quite disgusted at this take. How many readers want to bet this take is informed by more than a little implicit racial bias, these being Black men at a primarily Black high school in a primarily Black neighborhood?
See this doc, including the section "Some important points to consider".
https://www.cancer.org/cancer/risk-prevention/understanding-...
You can be disgusted all you want but I think you're making an error.
But note there was more than TCE at those superfund sites.
That being said, if you run your own private well, you’re not subject to this.