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Upper Valley Residents' Concerns Persist As Dartmouth Contamination Costs Mount

Allison Quantz for NHPR

Dartmouth College says it has spent $8.4 million cleaning up contamination on property where scientists once dumped carcasses of lab animals in the 1960s and 1970s.

The Ivy League school began cleaning up the site in 2011 and realized a year later that at least one carcinogen had leaked into the groundwater. Last year, it determined one family's well water was contaminated.

Dartmouth provided the family with bottled water and sampled over 100 drinking wells in the neighborhood.

The school is continuing to monitor the property, while building a system to treat contaminated water there.

Other homeowners worry the pollution will reach their wells and damage their property values. Many contend Dartmouth was too slow to respond once it found the contamination and has been reluctant to provide full details.

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