Nobody told the people who bought those homes about the contamination . . .

February 28, 2008 - The barns are long gone, replaced about nine years ago by manufactured homes, some positioned directly where the barns once stood.

Only nobody told the people who bought those homes about the poultry farm or tested the wells for contamination before the lots were sold.

The residents didn’t find out until 2001, when the state tested their wells and found potentially dangerous levels of nitrates in five of them.

High levels of nitrates can lead to a potentially fatal blood disorder in infants and the unborn called methemoglobinemia, or “blue-baby” syndrome. Chicken manure is a common source of nitrate contamination in groundwater.

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