This property has a documented history as a farm and agricultural operation going back to 1978. Historical insurance policies issued during those prior operations and through 1986 could recover the cleanup costs already paid.
Starting in 1978, the Port of Skagit County leased the taxiway-adjacent portion of its Burlington airport property to a succession of individuals and companies engaged in crop dusting, who stored and handled pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides in a hangar constructed on site in 1982 and loaded those chemicals directly onto aircraft. Stained soils were discovered in 2000, triggering an investigation and ultimately a Voluntary Cleanup Program remediation plan calling for the excavation and off-site disposal of an estimated 4,000 to 5,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil, five years of groundwater monitoring, and full site restoration, at an estimated cost of $1,098,000. The site has received a No Further Action designation. 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 contamination here traces to the 1978 lease arrangement under which the Port granted a series of crop-dusting operators the right to store and handle agricultural chemicals at the airport — each of those lessees, and the Port itself, may have carried Commercial General Liability coverage during their respective tenures before 1986. Occurrence-based CGL policies issued to those successive operators during the years the hangar was active would have had no effective pollution exclusion, and remain enforceable for releases tied to operations in that window. The $1,098,000 remediation program now attributed to those historical crop-dusting activities represents costs that the carriers of those policies may 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.
