Source: Bellevue News-Democrat, February 2, 2006
An insurance company accused the owners of the St. Louis Cardinals of making false claims about contamination on the land under its new stadium and then demanding it pay much of the $14 million cleanup costs.
Greenwich Insurance Co. said Wednesday that SLC Holdings LLC and the Cardinals should not be reimbursed for cleanup costs and expenses related to petroleum, heavy metals and other materials found at a bus parking lot where it built its new stadium.
In a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, the insurance company said it sought to rescind its $20 million pollution liability policy or at least to win a court declaration that the team could not claim coverage for the contamination.
Greenwich said the Cardinals claimed in its policy application that no prior environmental audits or studies had been conducted for Busch Stadium or its bus lot site.
In fact, the company said, environmental audits and studies had been completed in 1995 and 1996 which disclosed the presence of environmental conditions that would have been relevant to the policy.
The audits noted environmental concerns at the bus lot site due to historical usage which included gasoline service stations, chemical manufacturing and an electric company, the lawsuit said.
The Cardinals are scheduled to play their first official game at the stadium on April 10, their home opener against Milwaukee. Cardinals spokesman Brian Bartow didn’t return a telephone call seeking comment.