North Star had issued the Rodins a liability policy covering bodily injuries sustained on their property. But the policy also contained a pollution exclusion – a provision that barred coverage for bodily injury or property damage resulting from the actual, alleged, or threatened discharge, dispersal, seepage, migration, spill, release, or escape of pollutants. The policy defined a pollutant as any solid, liquid, gaseous, thermal, or radioactive irritant or contaminant, and included acids, alkalis, chemicals, fumes, smoke, soot, vapor, and waste in that definition.
