The federal government has failed in its attempt to get out of a multimillion-dollar suit over the cleanup of a radioactive waste disposal site in central Pennsylvania, even though it already agreed to pay the state $10 million a decade ago, under a federal judge's order.

Pennsylvania spent more than $35 million to clean up the site that is just south of the Allegheny National Forest in the 1990s and in 2009, filed a suit against Lockheed Martin, whose predecessor had used the site in the 1960s to do work for the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, seeking to recover costs for cleanup.

Lockheed Martin, the lone defendant sued by the state, brought in the federal government as a third-party defendant in 2010. Lockheed Martin argued it, if held liable, would be entitled to contribution from the U.S. government, according to the opinion from U.S. District Judge Sylvia H. Rambo of the Middle District of Pennsylvania.