Opinion ID: 1308838
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: facts

Text: The following facts are undisputed. The pollution site is the former Hancock County Cooperative (Coop) retail gasoline station in Ventura, Iowa. Gasoline contamination to the soil and groundwater has occurred at the site, seeping from steel underground storage tanks located on the property. The property has been owned and operated as a retail gas station by the cooperative since the 1930s. The leaking underground tanks were removed in 1988, but the gasoline contamination to soil and groundwater at the site was not discovered until May 1990. The storage tanks began to release gasoline into the soil and groundwater because of corrosion to the tank walls at least ten years prior to their removal in 1988. The storage tanks were releasing gasoline into the environment during one or more of the policy years during which Farmland Mutual Insurance Company's comprehensive general liability policies were in force. All of the insurance policies issued to the Coop by Farmland contained the following standard pollution exclusion: (b) Exclusions This insurance does not apply to: .... (6) bodily injury or property damage arising out of the discharge, dispersal, release or escape of smoke, vapors, soot, fumes, acids, alkalis, toxic chemicals, liquids or gases, waste materials or other irritants, contaminants or pollutants into or upon land, the atmosphere or any water course or body of water; but this exclusion does not apply if such discharge, dispersal, release or escape is sudden and accidental. (Emphasis added.) The Iowa Comprehensive Underground Storage Tank Fund Board (the board) took remedial action at the contamination site and, as the Coop's assignee, made demands on Farmland for its costs. The board filed a declaratory judgment action, asking the court to interpret the sudden and accidental language in the policy.