A recent the Daily News Online story, “Judge Orders Insurers to Pay Port $2.5M in Attorney Fees” reports that a Cowlitz County, WA judge has ordered a group of insurers to pay the Port of Longview $2.53 million in attorney fees in an ongoing lawsuit related to decades-old soil contamination.

Signed in late December, the order is the latest development in a complex case in which the port has sued more than 40 insurance companies tied to Lloyd’s of London, the British insurance market exchange.

The port sued those companies in 2010 to force them to pay for contamination at two sites in the port’s west industrial park.  The soil was contaminated sometime in the middle of the last century, but the port said it did not discover the damage until the late 1980s.  Port officials want to clean up the properties to attract new clients there.

One site previously housed International Paper Co.’s creosote plant and a rail line.  That’s where an underground pipe leaked bunker fuel from the Berth 1 docks to an old storage tank owned by Longview Fibre Co.  Another site was contaminated with wood treating chemicals.

The London insurers say they shouldn’t be on the hook for covering decades-old damage done by other industries.  The cleanup costs are not known at this time, but the port says its eligible for up to $200 million worth of compensation for damages. 

In 2013, the port won a partial victory when a jury ruled the insurers must cover up to $500,000 in cleanup costs under certain policies.  That same year, the port accepted a $950,000 settlement from three other companies: Arrowood Indemnity Co., Indemnity Marine Assurance Co. and Marine Indemnity Insurance Co. of America. 

Last month’s order by Cowlitz Superior Court Judge Stephen Warning mandates that the insurers pay the port for its legal fees in the parts of the dispute in which it already has prevailed.