CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — Dartmouth College says it has reached a settlement with a family who said they suffered health problems from drinking well water contaminated by runoff from a site where the Ivy League school once dumped animals used in science experiments.
The school says it agreed to purchase the home of Richard and Debbie Higgins and provide additional compensation to the family for the “emotional impacts” of the contamination and future health needs.
Rennie Farm was used from the 1960s until 1978 to dump carcasses from “tracer experiments,” in which scientists used radioactive compounds to see how things moved through life systems.
One of the chemicals used in the experiments, a suspected carcinogen called 1,4-dioxane, leaked into the groundwater and contaminated the Higgins’ private well.
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