This property has a documented history as a industrial and manufacturing facility going back to 1910. Historical insurance policies issued during those prior operations and through 1986 could recover the cleanup costs already paid.
This property has hosted continuous industrial operations since 1910, including marble works, boat building, machine shop production of military and aerospace components, garden tractor manufacturing, and battery manufacturing. Cleanup under the Voluntary Cleanup Program has been ongoing since at least 2007, encompassing excavation of over 7,400 tons of contaminated soil, removal of an underground storage tank, installation and operation of Soil Vapor Extraction and Air Sparging systems, groundwater monitoring, and placement of engineered barriers including asphalt caps and restrictive covenants. The site has received a No Further Action determination. That history could support an insurance cost recovery claim against carriers who issued insurance policies 40+ years ago.
Why Historical Insurance Policies May Be Accessible
Pre-1986 Commercial General Liability (CGL) policies were occurrence-based and did not contain an effective pollution exclusion in Washington. If contamination occurred while those policies were active, those historical insurance carriers may still have a legal obligation to fund the cleanup costs, even if the business closed or the property changed hands.
Industrial contamination at this property — petroleum hydrocarbons, chlorinated solvents including TCA and TCE, metals, and chromic acid — traces to manufacturing operations that began more than seven decades before 1986, when occurrence-based Commercial General Liability policies still carried no effective pollution exclusion in Washington. The documented remediation expenditures — large-scale soil excavation, UST removal, vapor extraction, air sparging, long-term monitoring, and engineered controls — were incurred to address releases rooted in those pre-1986 operations. Historical carriers who issued CGL policies during the site's lengthy industrial tenure may still be obligated to recover those cleanup costs.
Restorical's role is to locate viable historical policies, determine whether a successful cost recovery claim is possible, and assist our clients and their legal counsel to obtain insurance coverage for costs already incurred. Restorical's forensic accounting team works to re-establish and document past cleanup expenditures, ensuring the strongest possible basis for recovery.
Recovering Costs from an Older Cleanup
If this site reached No Further Action years ago, the original cleanup expenditures may be difficult to reconstruct. Restorical's forensic accounting team specializes in re-establishing and documenting past cleanup costs — even decades later — to build the strongest possible basis for an insurance recovery claim.
What We Look For
- Historical insurance policies (pre-1986)
- Policy numbers, carrier names, and coverage periods
- Connection between contamination timing and policy period
- Evidence linking cleanup obligation to insured activity
What We Deliver
- Historical Coverage Chart
- Trigger Analysis & Property/Policy Nexus
- Coverage strategy with recommendations
- Insurance funding for your remediation
- Claims Management & Forensic Accounting
The Restorical Proven Process
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Contact UsThis analysis is preliminary and based on publicly available records. Restorical Research is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice.
