This property has a documented history as a industrial and manufacturing facility going back to 1938. Historical insurance policies issued during those prior operations and through 1986 could recover the cleanup costs already paid.
This property operated as a bus maintenance facility from the late 1930s through 2008 — first under North Coast Transportation Company and then under Greyhound Bus Lines beginning in 1949. The facility's infrastructure included 11 underground storage tanks containing various fuels and chemicals, 21 service pits, hydraulic lifts, a grease rack, and a parts cleaning area. Cleanup under the Voluntary Cleanup Program included excavation and off-site disposal of 115,000 tons of contaminated soil, removal of all 11 USTs, extraction and treatment of 532,000 gallons of contaminated groundwater and 470 gallons of liquid petroleum product, and bioventing — with groundwater treatment systems operating from 1993 to 2013. 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.
Contamination at this property resulted from nearly seven decades of bus maintenance operations — fueling, parts cleaning, hydraulic servicing — that began more than four decades before 1986. Occurrence-based CGL policies issued to the operators during that pre-1986 window carried no effective pollution exclusion under Washington law and remain enforceable today. The scale of documented remediation expenditures here — 115,000 tons of soil removal, two decades of groundwater extraction and treatment, UST decommissioning, and bioventing — represents costs that the historical carriers who insured those operations may still be obligated to recover.
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.
