This property has a documented history as a industrial and manufacturing facility predating 1986. Historical insurance policies issued during those prior operations and through 1986 could recover the cleanup costs already paid.
The Diesing Property Parcel B in Fife, Pierce County was originally used for residential and farm purposes, but required environmental remediation due to contamination migrating from the adjacent Simpson Sierra Sandblasting facility — the source of buried debris including batteries, car husks, and sandblasting slag that impacted the subsurface. Cleanup under the Voluntary Cleanup Program included the excavation and off-site disposal of approximately 2,900 tons of metals-impacted soil, with initial cleanup actions completed in 1999 and 2000. Three permanent monitoring wells were installed and six groundwater monitoring events were conducted from October 2013 through September 2015. 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.
The arsenic, cadmium, and lead contamination at this property was deposited through historical industrial disposal practices at the adjacent sandblasting facility — practices that the record indicates predate 1986, when occurrence-based Commercial General Liability policies remained the industry standard and carried no effective pollution exclusion. A neighboring industrial operator's buried waste becoming a cleanup liability on an adjoining parcel is precisely the type of third-party contamination scenario those pre-1986 policies were written to address. The documented remediation expenditures here — nearly 2,900 tons of excavated soil, monitoring infrastructure, and two years of groundwater sampling — represent recoverable costs that historical carriers whose policies covered that operational window may still be obligated to fund.
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.
