A $27.25 million legal settlement has been reached in lawsuits that accused the company Water Gremlin of releasing a harmful chemical and causing serious illness and death for some White Bear Township residents.

Water Gremlin Inc., which manufactured fishing products and battery terminals, filed for bankruptcy in 2023 and is no longer in business. It previously faced millions of dollars in fines by state regulators for releasing the hazardous chemical, trichloroethylene, or TCE, into the air.

It also faced fines for other issues, including water pollution, and temporarily closed in 2019 when it was discovered that children of employees were being exposed to lead that was tracked into their homes accidentally.

The 95 lawsuits were brought forward in 2023, claiming the chemical was the cause of 35 wrongful deaths and 60 chronic illness cases, primarily cancer, among residents and their family members.

Water Gremlin’s parent company, Okabe Co., Inc., which is headquartered in Tokyo with a U.S. location in Grayslake, Ill., could not be reached for comment Friday.

“It’s really because Water Gremlin, under the shadow of Okabe, who’s the parent company, was not following their permits,” said Dean Salita, the lead attorney representing the plaintiffs. “They … were dumping a chemical into the White Bear Lake Township and White Bear and Vadnais Heights area for nearly 20 years. It’s a cancer-causing chemical.”

Water Gremlin was subsequently sold to another company and the money from the sale was put into a trust account, which will go toward part of the settlement, Salita said. Part of the settlement amount comes from Okabe, he said.

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“And it’s really not about the money. There’s no amount of money that can get people’s lives back after cancer and what they went through, but the fact that people were held accountable is really the most important part of this whole deal,” Salita said.

Litigation against the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency is ongoing, Salita said.