DiMeglio decided to move back to Rhode Island in 2016, she thought she'd found the perfect house on Connecticut Island.

- I loved Jamestown.

This house came on and it just all worked out timing with, I decided to move home, bought the house.

It all kind of happened all at once.

At the time, it was too good to be true.

It hasn't worked since 2021.

- [Olivia] What DiMeglio didn't know is that Connecticut Island has a low natural supply of drinking water and her house was running out.

- The well would would go dry.

I'd wait a couple hours and it would replenish and I'd be fine.

And that was every now and then, like, once in a blue moon.

- [Olivia] By the time the pandemic hit, DiMeglio's partner had moved in and the couple had a newborn.

Shortly after, their water supply trickled to a stop.

- Daily we were running out of water.

We were getting sick.

Our dog and cat were throwing up all the time.

I was getting bad rashes.

Our baby bottles, which was the big thing, had, like, a white film all over them.

And when they would dry, it was like powder, almost, like, it almost looks like cement.

And I was like, "Why is this happening?"

- [Olivia] After an inspection, engineers said that DiMeglio's well had run almost completely dry, and that her neighbors' wells would follow suit.

- "You are the unfortunate first."

I will never forget them saying that to me.

And I said, "When will this happen to everybody else?"

And they said, "Probably within the next five years."

- [Olivia] One by one, many of her neighbors did start losing pressure in their wells.

DiMeglio and four others applied for extensions through the Jamestown Board of Water and Sewer Commissioners.

- I have a bottle here, I don't know if you can see it, or if it's worth it, but this is a bottle that's been washed maybe twice in this water.

This is a bottle that was washed for a week.

I don't know if you can see the difference, but it's pretty horrible.

- [Olivia] Two meetings later, the commissioners unanimously denied all of the applications, claiming the island did not have enough water.

- I, personally, as much as it pains me on a personal level to these sincere applicants, there is no choice.

There is no responsible choice for us as water and sewer commissioners.

These applications fail.

They fail on their face.

- [Olivia] Ever since a devastating drought struck Connecticut Island in 1993, the town of Jamestown has instituted strict rules about who can and cannot be on municipal water.

The island is split into two water districts.

There's the Urban Water District, where the residents drink piped water that largely comes from an open reservoir.

And there's the Rural Water District, where residents rely on wells, which usually drill down to little pockets of fresh water in the bedrock under the island called fractures.

Both water sources are replenished by rainwater, which seeps into the ground and makes its way into the fractures and the aquifer.

To learn more about how the water sources work on Connecticut, I met with University of Rhode Island Professor of Hydrogeology, Thomas Boving.

- Think about a bathtub and every well owner is basically putting a straw into the groundwater.

And they're all sucking from the same reservoir.

And, as the reservoir responds by going down, assuming, like, in the bathtub where you turn off the faucet, that would be a drought, for example, it goes down, the guys with the straw that is not penetrating very deeply into the reservoir go dry quickly.

The ones with the deep straw, the deep well, can pump longer time.

At the same time, when the pumps in the deep wells run, they affect the the shallow wells.

(water dripping) - [Olivia] The town is concerned that the reservoir could run dry if additional homeowners use the water source.

Scientists like Boving say less development in an area makes it easier for heavy rain to be absorbed into the natural system rather than running off of concrete into the bay.

To capture the extra water, the town has bought up vacant tracks of land to prevent development.

But Professor Boving says there's no way to know whether the town's actions are working, since a hydrological study hasn't been conducted for the island in about 30 years.

- All this information would be very helpful for any municipality that is reliant on groundwater, or largely on groundwater or surface water, to understand where are the problem areas or where are the areas that we are pretty safe?

- [Olivia] But the town of Jamestown thinks it might not have enough water for its current Urban District Water customers.

It produced an analysis of water usage that shows, if every bedroom in the urban water district were occupied and using the full amount of water, the reservoir would go dry.

The projection is based on the 30-year-old hydrology study, measurements from the reservoir, and usage tracking.

Boving says this water issue will only get more difficult with climate change.

- It's already happening and it's predicted to change New England towards somewhat wetter conditions, on average.

But the devil is in the detail.

That doesn't mean it rains every day more and more, it means there can be times of extreme wet conditions, weeks of downpours, followed by droughts.

I'm more worried about the droughts because the droughts can prolong during the new normal.

(water sloshing) - In prolonged dry periods, brackish water can seep in, which is unhealthy to drink when treated with standard methods.

Luckily, Boving says there are ways to protect against this.

Do these places need to do a better job at planning for the future?

- The short answer is yes.

'Cause, if we manage our water resources, we can stretch 'em out to address these issues of droughts and whatnot.

The water resources are unevenly distributed, so there's some areas on an island that are maybe underutilized.

- [Olivia] Boving says conservation helps, but there are also other solutions.

There's desalination, though it is energy intensive.

And Boving says some communities in California have been recycling and consuming their own wastewater for years.

- There are these technologies that can turn pee water into drinkable water.

Think about the astronauts and the space station, right?

I mean, they have actually pioneered this system where it's a closed loop.

All the water on the space station is constantly recycled.

Has to be, because there's no other water resource.

So maybe take the space station and replace it with Connecticut Island and say, "Okay, we have X amount of water, we can recycle it."

Make, reuse, use technologies to turn water of lower quality into high quality water.

That technology exists.

- Town manager, Ed Mello, said Jamestown is in the early stages of looking into a desalination system, but it'll take years and cost many millions of dollars.

Do you wish that things had been done differently in the past to prepare for this?

- I think in, you know, everybody, in looking back and being Monday morning quarterbacks can be critical of what's happened in the past.

I don't think anybody can be critical of the protection that the commission has applied of a very valuable and finite resource that we've had.

With that being said, we do have a responsibility to try to find the future of water for Jamestown.

- [Olivia] When the DiMeglios and their neighbors were denied water extensions, some had to leave.

- We moved out.

We couldn't sell the house, we couldn't live in the house, and we couldn't rent the house, and so it sat here and we moved out.

- Where'd you move to?

- I moved in with my parents.

- [Olivia] Recently, DiMeglio's four neighbors appealed the town's decision to the State Board of Water Resources.

The board voted unanimously to grant the permission to extend the water main to their properties as well.

They reminded the town that state law requires them to allow residents to drink municipal water if they can prove they have no other way to get enough clean water.

As for DiMeglio, she and the town settled a lawsuit.

She and her husband are footing the bill to extend the main to her house and work has started on the waterline.

Although she has spent the last five years living in Providence, she still brings her kids to their home on the weekends.

- We fought really hard to remain members of this community and we want our children to know that they are accepted as members of this community.

- As Jamestown grapples with preserving water for its current customers, it is also looking to the future.

To prevent additional homeowners from being allowed to tie into municipal water, the town wants the state legislature to amend state law to allow the Jamestown Water and Sewer Commissioners to have the final say over who can and cannot connect to municipal water.

What is the municipality's responsibility to provide its residents, all of its residents, with water, access to clean drinking water?

- I don't think there'd be any hesitation or reservation by the commission to offer water if we had it.

But the reality is, we just don't today.