Rockton

Chemtool money begins flowing with more to come

The judge will be given a plan to split Holian's payment between local residents and Chemtool, meaning more money for residents.

Michael McGinnis

May 2, 2025 — 4 min read

Attorneys Annalise Castner, representing Holian, Ed Manske, representing Rockton residents, Joseph Vallort, representing Chemtool, and Judge Stephen Balogh, representing Justice.

Now that payments from the Chemtool settlement have begun arriving electronically, residents and property owners in the Rockton area are likely to get a second payment from a settlement with Holian Insulation.

At the May 2, 2025 Chemtool hearing, attorney Ed Manske told Winnebago County 17th Judicial Circuit Court Judge Stephen Balogh that he had "some overall really good news." Manske represents the residents affected by the disaster. He said payments began being issued to class members electronically on Wednesday, April 30, 2025 and by mail on Thursday, May 1, 2025. He said, "I believe all of them went out via mail yesterday [Thursday]."

Residents began seeing payments arriving on Thursday via Venmo, Zelle, and PayPal. Zelle offers services to banks as well, which allowed some residents to see the money in their bank account. Others must transfer their money from the payment services into their bank accounts.

Manske added, "We have been getting contacts from people who have questions about their payments and we're dealing with those and will continue to deal with those."

But there was another piece of good news. In December, attorneys for the Rockton residents attended a mediation with Chemtool and Holian and "we reached a settlement agreement." Since then, the attorneys have been meeting with Chemtool on how to split the money from Holian. They reached an agreement on that too.

Judge Balogh asked how that would affect the current settlement fund. Manske replied that it wouldn't, but it "will mean additional monies coming to the class." He said it might take attorney Robert Libman another 3-4 weeks to finalize the agreement.

Judge Balogh set another hearing to go over the Holian agreement, for Friday, June 13, 2025 at 1:30 "if that works for everyone," again in his new Boone County courtroom. It will be available by Zoom, but court officials prefer that residents view it on YouTube. Any questions should be directed to the class action attorneys, such as Ed Manske, but not during the court proceedings.

Some of the attorneys at the hearing were Joseph Vallort, representing Chemtool, and Annalise Castner, representing Holian.

With thousands of class members receiving payments this week, several commented that their payments were larger than expected. For example:

$8,866, more than a mile from Chemtool, 2 residents, non-owners
$12,600, less than a mile, 1 resident
$13,540, almost three miles, 4 residents
$14,834, 1.86 miles, 3 residents, home value about $250k
$14,200, less than a mile
$15,200, less than a mile
$17,000, about 2.8 miles, home value about $358K
$96,000 for 4 properties, in a single payment

Payments vary according to distance, residency, and property value. There are two parts of the payment. Owners share in one part, residents share in the other. Renters only get money from one part, non-resident landlords only get money from the other part. Homeowners who lived there at the time get money from both parts. Theoretically, the highest payments would go to a big family living in their big house less than a mile from Chemtool. But a tiny apartment with one renter less than a mile away might get less than a big family living in their big house two miles away.

Are the payments taxable? Analytics Consulting says, "Since these are compensatory damages, they are not reportable to the IRS."

Early readers of this story were able to view the livestream of the meeting on YouTube, but the video has now been made private.

This series of articles has been honored with an award by the Illinois Press Association.