WASHTENAW COUNTY, MI — When they sold a 1940s-era fire hall to be redeveloped, officials in a Washtenaw County township failed to formally disclose a potential roadblock to the purchaser.
Under the former fire station near the heart of Whitmore Lake, a residential hamlet north of Ann Arbor, an old heating oil tank had leaked into the soil. Some of the contamination remained when Northfield Township sold it in 2022 for $110,000.
More than three years later, it’s coming back to haunt township officials, who acknowledge the pollution wasn’t noted in writing to the developers during the sale, as is normally expected in a real estate transaction…