DAVID DISHNEAU
Associated Press
HAGERSTOWN, Md. (AP) — The federal government is asking a judge to dismiss a lawsuit alleging groundwater pollution from Fort Detrick reduced the value of private land next door.
The Justice Department said in a filing Thursday that it was publicly known when Frederick developer Waverley View Investors LLC acquired the land in 2012 that the groundwater was considered potentially unsafe.
The government says the developer therefore cannot claim that the government’s actions diminished the value of its investment.
The government also contends that both the chemical dumping that caused the pollution and the cleanup effort decades later were discretionary government functions exempt from liability claims.
Waverley View filed the lawsuit in May in U.S. District Court in Baltimore. It seeks $37 million in damages.
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