This property has a documented history as a industrial and manufacturing facility going back to 1890. 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.

Industrial operations at this site — involving petroleum fuels, chlorine, and ammonia compounds — ran from the late 1800s through 1978, predating the 1986 threshold by decades and spanning the entire era when occurrence-based CGL policies were written without effective pollution exclusions. The contamination is entirely attributable to historical mill operations, not to any recent release, which anchors liability to those pre-1986 policy years. Documented remediation expenditures — tens of thousands of cubic yards of excavation and engineered fill, containment systems, demolition, and long-term groundwater monitoring — represent costs that historical carriers who issued CGL policies to Scott Paper Company and its predecessors may be obligated to recover.

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.