This story is part of our series One Storm Away: How climate change is threatening drinking water on the Ocean State’s islands
Nestled in the middle of Narragansett Bay, Prudence Island is home to a small community of about 230 year-round residents. It’s only reachable by boat, and climate change may be spurring a drinking water crisis for its residents.
Resident Robin Weber has lived on the island full-time for more than 20 years, but she started visiting as a child.
“We used to have very small summertime cottages that were occupied only for a few months a year,” she said. “Now those are being knocked down and larger homes are being built with the full heat and the water use and washing machines.”
In addition to being a volunteer firefighter and running a “green” cemetery, Weber also is the moderator for an all-volunteer water board that makes decisions for the island’s water district. She said she has volunteered with the water board for 11 years.
Weber says that the population balloons to about 1,500 people in the summer time, but that as the hot weather has stretched into the fall and the spring, many additional residents stay for longer.
“Snow birds. They show up in April, they don’t leave until October,” Weber said. “[It] has really shifted and changed the amount of water that we need to meet demand. But the amount of water itself is finite, and that hasn’t changed.”
Weber says the island has only two wells to serve the community’s growing needs. There’s no backup supply, and like elsewhere in Rhode Island, the infrastructure is aging.
While most of the state’s water systems are connected to the well-stocked Scituate Reservoir, some island and coastal communities like Prudence Island have to be self-reliant, gathering their water from fractures in local bedrock or aquifer systems. Many of these communities are more directly dependent on rainfall, and detached from the mainland, can’t rely on emergency water services in a pinch. As the climate continues to change, many of these communities will need to find more secure sources of drinking water.
Prudence Island has already come close to a “complete dewatering of the system” Weber said.
A few years ago, in the middle of the night, the community’s main well pump failed. It’s not possible to call a specialized mechanic to a small island at a moment’s notice, but Weber said they were saved when the water operator was able to fix the pump on the spot.
“We would’ve been in big, big trouble,” she said.
Climate change is compounding Prudence Island’s water issues
The sea level is rising, fueling floods. It’s also getting warmer, which is leading to regions getting stuck in more intense weather patterns for longer, according to Brown University oceanographer Baylor Fox-Kemper. As New England’s climate continues to change, Fox-Kemper said, we can expect “more droughts, more wintertime rainfall and snowfall, and maybe more intense storms as well.”
“It dries more when it’s dry, and it actually can hold more water for bigger storms when it’s wet,” he said.
Hydrologist Soni Pradhanang at the University of Rhode Island also said the region is anticipating sea level rise, which could lead to saltwater seeping into Prudence Island’s water supply.
Scientists have modeled different scenarios for sea level rise. Some of the more drastic scenarios show a rise of 8.99 feet in Newport by the year 2100, while many scientists believe that we will experience a moderate rise of about three-to-four feet by then.
When saltwater gets into a water system, whether from sea level rise creeping up through the ground or flooding from a storm, it can damage the pipes and pumps that make the water system work. Scientists also say it’s notoriously difficult to treat and can be dangerous in the long-term to residents’ health.
“We have to start thinking about the sea level rise. Sea level rise is happening,” said hydrologist Soni Pradhanang at the University of Rhode Island.
The droughts that Fox-Kemper outlined are also attracting more invasive species to the island, as well as to the rest of the region. Gypsy moths thrive in dry conditions. During a prolonged state-wide drought from about 2014-2017, the moths descended on trees across the state, eventually eating up about half of the state’s tree canopy.
On a walk through a large forested area at the center of the island, Weber points out trees that appear dry and crumbly.
“We’ve had decades of winter moth, we had gypsy moth infestation, and you can really see it on the landscape. We no longer have what you would consider a closed canopy forest on the island,” she said.
Fellow Water Board member Chris Brown said he’s now nervous sometimes walking in the wintertime.
“These trees are falling down,” he said.
The loss of live trees also further impairs the island ecosystem’s ability to capture water. According to hydrologist Soni Pradhanang, tree root systems can soak up extra water. Without the live trees, it’s more difficult for the ground to soak up the intensifying rains when they come to break up the droughts. That can create a vicious cycle.
“You are adding that dryness even more to the system. It’s basically circles,” she said.
When the rains run off back into the bay, it can further pollute the water, according to Fox-Kemper.
“Runoff has a lot of side effects,” he said. “There’s often fertilizer. There can be microplastics from tire debris and other kinds of pollutants that can be washed downstream and then challenge ecosystems that can come out in a lot of different ways.”
Fertilizer or chemicals running off can hurt fish populations in the bay.
The search for more water
All of these climate change issues impede Prudence Island’s ability to fully recharge its wells, causing an issue that Weber describes as truly existential. Yet, she says she and the water board have not had time or money to fully address these problems. The community has been on a boil water notice for six years due to a positive E. Coli test back in 2018, and have been busy with a state mandate to chlorinate one of their wells. Weber is worried the well could one day fail anyway.
Weber’s main goal now is finding a well that can produce more water for island residents. But that has come with additional challenges. The island’s most promising water stores are all located on state land, much of which is designated as a conservation area. The state has told Weber the land deed prevents the water board from drilling wells there. Weber says her attempts to get the state to change the clause have been unsuccessful so far.
A spokesperson for the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management said that “DEM cannot provide comment or legal interpretation of any issue that involves current or potential litigation.” Weber said the Water District did not have an ongoing lawsuit against the state.
Mainly, Weber fears what could happen to the Prudence Island community in a worst case climate change scenario if the water district can’t drill to find an additional source of fresh drinking water.
“I think,” she said “it would probably cease to exist.”
