The Holroyd Company Nisqually Pit facility, located on Old Pacific Highway SE in Olympia, operated as an industrial pit site with diesel-fueled equipment served by underground storage tanks. A release of diesel from a leaking UST contaminated soil and groundwater at the property. Independent remedial action was conducted from 1999 to 2000 under the Voluntary Cleanup Program, including stockpile soil remediation of diesel-impacted material. Ecology issued a No Further Action determination for the site. 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.
The diesel contamination at this property originated from underground storage tanks that served industrial pit operations predating 1986, when occurrence-based Commercial General Liability policies carried no effective pollution exclusion in Washington. The documented remediation expenditures — UST-related investigation, soil remediation, and groundwater response — were incurred to address a release tied to those historical operations. Historical carriers who issued CGL policies during the period the tanks were in service 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.
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.