it's not unreasonable to expect a reader to glean that it means that the villages have no more water drinkable from the ground. the alternative is deeply unlikely
the alternative that all the villages in france, in the entire country, have bad drinking water is entirely believable and that's what is not true, it's just a programmer's dozen of them, and that's the clarification I was looking for, this is a tiny problem that effects few people and a small geographic area.
it's not unreasonable to expect a reader to glean that it means that the villages have no more water drinkable from the ground. the alternative is deeply unlikely