We caught this news in the Louisville Carrier-Journal (KY):

Ronald Lamb was outraged and demanded government compensation after discovering in 1994 that his water well had been tainted by pollution from the nearby Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant.

Now, Lamb said he's intrigued by a measure before Congress calling for the government to study buying the properties of families whose homes and farms sit on top of a plume of groundwater contaminated by degreasing solvents and radioactive chemicals.

[...]

The measure passed the Senate 92-3 on July 1 and now goes to a conference with the House, which did not include a similar provision.

[...]

"How do you value two decades or more of living in a toxic environment, having family members getting ill, and seeing the value and heritage of your property go downhill?" [a Paducah area resident] asked. "Yet the government won't compensate for this, and I foresee a lot of bitterness if the government tries to take this property on the cheap."

This is the first we've heard of such a measure being considered by Congress. We'll do a bit of research on it and return with any additional details we can find (and perhaps some discussion of the implications). Meantime, there's more to the story, including discussion of the Paducah area contamination situation, here.