This property has a documented history as a industrial and manufacturing facility going back to 1914. Historical insurance policies issued during those prior operations and through 1986 could fund a cleanup — and recover costs already spent.

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.

All contamination at this property — PCBs, lead, mercury, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons from Bunker C fuel oil, and asbestos — is attributed to industrial power-generation operations that began in 1914, more than six decades before the 1986 occurrence-based CGL cutoff. PCB removal was already underway at the plant in 1986, and investigations initiated in 1987 explicitly tied the contamination to past LUSP operations rather than any subsequent incident. The scale of documented remediation expenditures — tank removals, soil excavation, hazardous-material decontamination, long-term groundwater management — combined with outstanding future cleanup obligations, makes the pre-1986 CGL policies issued to the plant's operators a material avenue for cost recovery.

Restorical's role is to locate viable historical policies, determine whether a successful coverage claim is possible, and assist our clients and their legal counsel to obtain insurance coverage. Restorical then manages the claim, including accounting, to ensure the cleanup is funded in a timely manner.