> I talked to a lawyer, who didn't think we'd be likely to succeed if we tried to get the insurance company to pay anyway. They did think whoever owned the house at the time of the spill would be liable, but it would be hard to prove that the spill happened at a certain time and they may not have the money.

Right from the article. Sounds like there have been multiple owners, no way to assign blame. Last owner probably can't be fined for something they had no knowledge of.

We bought the house in February. We might try to sue people, but it's pretty clear the previous owners don't have much money. (The house was mortgaged to within a few-k of the selling price, and they had stopped paying their monthly payments. Which made it pretty hard to actually buy the house! http://www.jefftk.com/p/house-buying-timeline)