In ARC Raiders, the quest "Source of the Contamination" is one of those missions that sounds straightforward but still makes you pay attention to your surroundings. The goal is to track down what's causing polluted water in the Dam Battlegrounds and report back once you've found the source. Like a lot of ARC Raiders quests, it mixes simple exploration with a bit of risk as you move through an active combat zone ARC Raiders Coins.
To start, you want to head to the Water Treatment Building in the central part of Dam Battlegrounds. The exact spot you're looking for is the flood spill intake on the north side of the structure, facing toward the swamp. It's usually easy to recognize once you're close, since the area has that concrete drainage look and visibly contaminated water pooling around it.
When you get there, drop into the water at the intake and look around for a barrel sitting in the polluted pool. That's the key object. Interacting with it completes the investigation step, even if the prompt sometimes reads a bit differently depending on context. Once you've done that, the main objective is finished.
The trip itself isn't long, but it's not completely safe either. Dam Battlegrounds tends to leave you exposed in open areas, and the swamp around the intake doesn't offer much cover. On top of that, you can run into both ARC enemies and other players passing through, so it's usually better to move in, complete the interaction quickly, and leave without hanging around too long.
One thing worth keeping in mind is that this location comes back later in the questline. The Water Treatment area is tied into the wider contamination storyline, so it's not just a one-time stop. The game uses it again in follow-up missions, which helps connect the story instead of treating each quest as completely separate ARC Raiders Battle pass.
What makes this quest work is how simple it is while still feeling grounded in the world. You're not solving anything overly complicated—you're just reading the environment, spotting something out of place, and checking it. The polluted water, the industrial setup, and the hidden barrel all tell the story without much dialogue.
