MMSD pays bonuses to private operator
The private company operating the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District's wastewater collection and treatment facilities will be paid a total of $320,000 in three performance bonuses for 2016, officials said Monday at an MMSD commission meeting.
The bonus payments to Veolia Water Milwaukee are in addition to an estimated 2016 base fee of $42.5 million paid to the company for operating regional sewers, the deep tunnel, Milorganite fertilizer factory and Jones Island and South Shore sewage treatment plants.
Veolia earned one bonus of $120,000 for discharging treated wastewater to Lake Michigan that contained fewer pollutants than limits set by a state permit and its operating contract, MMSD contract compliance officer Patrick Obenauf said Monday.
The two treatment plants discharged a total of 68.2 billion gallons of sewage and storm water in 2016, records show.
A bonus of $100,000 was paid to Veolia for operating the deep tunnel with one combined sanitary and storm sewer overflow incident in 2016. This bonus would have reached $200,000 if there had been no combined sewer overflows.
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On Sept. 7 and 8, combined sewers in central Milwaukee and eastern Shorewood poured 109.4 million gallons of untreated wastewater into local rivers and Lake Michigan to prevent sewage backups into basements of residences and businesses.
The sewer overflows started after the deep tunnel quickly filled to 85% of its capacity on Sept. 7 and gates connecting regional sewers to the tunnel were closed.
In 44 other storms last year, 100% of sewer overflow volumes were stored in the deep tunnel until there was capacity at the Jones Island and South Shore plants to treat the waste.
Veolia Water will be paid an estimated base fee of $48 million in 2017.
MMSD will end the practice of paying annual performance bonuses to Veolia Water beginning in 2018, under a 10-year, $500 million contract extension.
A separate $100,000 bonus was paid to the company for operating regional sewers without an overflow not related to deep tunnel capacity, Obenauf said.
The September combined sewer overflow was directly linked to the deep tunnel's limited capacity. The system of tunnels can store a total of 521 million gallons of storm water and sewage.
On Monday, the MMSD commission agreed to pay CDM Smith of Milwaukee up to $718,766 to recommend how to remove a few hundred cubic yards of thick and oily, toxic sediment in a major regional sewer on the north side of Milwaukee.
The sediment is contaminated with chemicals known as PCBs. The sticky sediment is clinging to the bottom of 8,000 feet of a metropolitan interceptor sewer that runs underground along the west bank of the Milwaukee River from Lincoln Park south to Auer Ave.
Cost of removal is estimated at $3.8 million.
The primary source of the PCBs in the regional sewer was a former factory, Milwaukee Die Casting Co. at 4132 N. Holton St., that used hydraulic fluids containing the chemicals in die-casting machines. Use of PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, was banned in 1979.