This property was used for landfilling municipal garbage during the 1950s and early 1960s, with waste disposed by both Kitsap County (through the Puget Service Company) and the U.S. Navy. A mobile home park, Norseland Mobile Estates, was subsequently developed on the landfill beginning in 1962. Cleanup under the Standard Cleanup program included relocating residents, constructing a 24-inch permeable soil cap over the landfill footprint, and establishing long-term institutional controls — fencing, deed restrictions, and a groundwater withdrawal prohibition — with cap maintenance required for at least 20 years. The site has reached No Further Action status. That history could support an insurance cost recovery claim against carriers who issued insurance policies 40+ years ago.
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.
Contamination at this property stems from municipal and military waste disposal operations conducted entirely in the 1950s and early 1960s, well within the era when occurrence-based Commercial General Liability policies carried no effective pollution exclusion. The remediation costs incurred here — resident relocation, landfill capping, decades of cap maintenance, and ongoing institutional controls — are the kind of documented cleanup expenditures that historical CGL carriers may be obligated to cover. Policies issued to the operators and waste generators during that disposal window remain a plausible source of recovery for those 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.
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.
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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.