This appeal concerns approximately four acres of land owned by Mel Foster Company Properties, Inc. (Foster). The real estate is part of a commercial development park located in the City of Bettendorf and convenient to the Interstate 74 road system. Certain improvements have been made to the Foster land, such as installation of water and utilities, but the lots are as yet undeveloped. Property adjacent to these lots has been developed.
Foster’s property is bordered by property owned by U-Haul Company of Eastern Iowa (U-Haul) and Amoco Oil Company (Amoco). Amoco’s property is leased to Chateau Standard (Chateau). Foster’s property has a very good potential for development. It is Foster’s intention to hold the property vacant until a particularly good business arrangement develops, then to enter into a long-term lease agreement.
In October of 1982, gasoline was found in the basement sump of an adjacent home. The Iowa Department of Environmental Quality 1 began a field investigation. A series of twenty-three monitoring wells were placed on Foster’s property to deter *173 mine the source and extent of the gasoline saturation.
The investigation resulted in the discovery that an underground gasoline tank of U-Haul and a distribution line at the Chateau gas station were leaking. Both the leaking tank and distribution line were replaced. Amoco designed and installed a recovery system on Foster’s property. This system consisted of ditches filled with gravel and a series of pumps to remove accumulated gasoline. The recovery system has not removed all of the gasoline.
Foster’s petition initially asserted several causes of action, including negligence, strict liability, trespass, and nuisance. Foster’s petition was later amended to claim only nuisance damages and the case was tried to a jury.
At trial, the court instructed the jury that the measure of damages was the reduction of reasonable rental value of the property caused by the nuisance measured from discovery of the gas leak to the time of trial. The jury found that a nuisance was caused by seepage of gasoline onto Foster’s property and awarded damages of $188,000. The jury found that U-Haul had caused sixty percent of the damage and that Amoco had caused forty percent of the damage. Because the trial court held that this was a temporary nuisance, Foster has the ability to bring subsequent suits to recover damages based on future lost rental value of the property. 2
Both Amoco and U-Haul challenge the district court’s interpretation of nuisance law. Challenges are raised to the district court’s definition of this contamination as a temporary nuisance, and the use of the diminuation of rental value as the measure of damages. Amoco asserts that no nuisance existed as a matter of law, and that it was error for the court to refuse to admit evidence concerning Foster’s failure to mitigate damages. U-Haul claims that the district court erred in admitting an exhibit offered by Amoco which was a model of the underground water table configuration in this area. In addition, both defendants challenge the prejudgment interest awarded to Foster.
In the arguments, the parties discuss the definition of a nuisance, the determination of whether the nuisance has been abated, and the characterization of this nuisance as temporary or permanent. The focus of this dispute, however, is the correct measure of damages. Foster asserts that the district court correctly instructed the jury that the measure of damages was the loss of reasonable rental value; Amoco and U-Haul urge that Foster is limited to a one-time damage award based upon the diminuation of the market value of the property. To resolve this conflict, it will be necessary to review certain basic principles of nuisance law.
I. The statutory definition of a nuisance is found at Iowa Code section 657.1 (1987). That section provides:
Whatever is injurious to health, indecent, or offensive to the senses, or an obstruction to the free use of property, so as essentially to interfere with the comfortable use and enjoyment of life or property, is a nuisance, and a civil action by ordinary proceedings may be brought to enjoin and abate the same and to recover damages sustained on account thereof.
The common law defines a nuisance as an actionable interference with a person’s interest in the private use and enjoyment of their land.
See Patz v. Farmegg Products, Inc.,
*174
Amoco asserts that no nuisance existed as a matter of law because the injury to Foster’s property was not shown to have been caused by intentional, negligent, or reckless conduct. We disagree. It is well established that the existence of a nuisance is not “affected by the intention of its creator not to injure anyone.”
Patz,
The defendants claim that the nuisance was abated at the time that U-Haul and Amoco corrected the sources of the pollution. To find that the nuisance is abated when the source of the nuisance is corrected, even though the contaminated property remains unusable, is to incorrectly focus on the cause of the nuisance rather than the injury to the property.
See Idaho Gold Dredging Corp. v. Boise Payette Lumber Co.,
The parties also dispute whether this nuisance is a temporary or permanent nuisance. This classification, according to the parties, will dictate the appropriate measure of damages; a temporary nuisance will result in damages equal to loss of rental value and a permanent nuisance will result in damages equal to loss of reduction in market value. We disagree.
Underground gasoline contamination does not fit neatly into a category as either a temporary or permanent nuisance. Case law concerning temporary nuisances often deals with the type of interference with the use of property which is abated when the cause of the nuisance has abated.
See, e.g., Bates v. Quality Ready-Mix Co.,
In such a case [temporary nuisance], in the absence of injury to the property itself, the measure of damages is the diminution in the rental value caused by the maintenance of the nuisance.
Id. (emphasis added).
Other cases suggest that if a nuisance causes damage which will be presented for an indefinite period of time, that nuisance should be considered permanent.
See Ryan v. City of Emmetsburg,
The word “permanent” in a legal sense is not equivalent to perpetual, or unending, or unchangeable. Permanency, in a legal acception of the term, does not mean forever — indefinitely long is sufficient.
Id.
at 394,
Chemical contamination of land, such as the gasoline on Foster’s property, encompasses aspects of both a temporary and permanent nuisance. This injury is temporary in the sense that the cause of the pollution has been discovered and abated, and the harmful chemicals in the ground will eventually dissipate. This nuisance is permanent in the sense that it constitutes damage to the ground itself and will continue for an indefinite but significant period of time. An attempt to classify chemical pollution as a permanent or temporary nuisance is further complicated by the presence of rapidly changing scientific technology. Scientific knowledge enables society to successfully clean up pollution once thought to be permanent; it also reveals hidden dangers in chemicals once thought to be safe. We agree with one commentator’s statement:
The terms “permanent” and “temporary” are somewhat nebulous in that they have practical meaning only in relation to particular fact situations and can change in characterization from one set of facts to another.
Note, Stream Pollution —Recovery of Damages, 50 Iowa L.Rev. 141, 153 (1964).
When a nuisance results in contamination of property for an indefinite period of time, the proper measure of damages is the diminution of the market value of the property. This measure of damages is proper even when the source of the contamination or pollution has been abated. Permanent damages may be awarded even if the nuisance is classified as temporary.
See Stockdale v. Agrico Chemical Co. Division of Continental Oil Co.,
The award of permanent damages based on the reduction of market value provides that the plaintiff’s remedies stemming from this particular incident will be addressed in one legal action. Successive actions to recover temporary damages stemming from one incident, such as the action currently filed by Foster, are contrary to the goal of efficient legal remedies. In the early case of Finley v. Hershey, 41 Iowa *176 389, 395 (1875), this court upheld an award of permanent damages for a nuisance consisting of a stagnant pond caused by the dumping of waste from a slaughter house. In making that decision, we stated:
If plaintiffs could only recover for the depreciated value of the use of the property whenever the property was used ... there would be a continually recurring cause of action in favor of plaintiffs, and the rights of the parties would not be settled in the present suit, a thing the law will avoid.
Id.
We conclude the proper measure of damages in this nuisance case is the difference between the market value of Foster’s property immediately before contamination and the market value of that property after the contamination. The district court erred by establishing the measure of damages as the reduction in the rental value of the property instead of the reduction in the market value of the property caused by the gasoline contamination.
II. The trial court did not err in excluding evidence concerning the conduct of the parties in reaching an agreement to
install the recovery system. This evidence is irrelevant and would only serve to confuse the issues. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the model of the ground water level.
See Schuller v. Hy-Vee Food Stores, Inc.,
AFFIRMED IN PART; REVERSED IN PART; AND REMANDED.