Full Whistleblower Testimony
On April 30th, Common Ground leaders went public with concerns about mismanagement of MMSD wastewater treatment facilities, which Veolia, a for-profit international company, runs. Read more in our press release here. This all started when we received an anonymous whistleblower letter in September 2023. We did not have capacity to investigate until recently.
The whistleblower, Steve Jacquart, spoke publicly for the first time on April 30th. Mr. Jacquart retired as the Intergovernmental Relations Coordinator at MMSD after 19 years, and previously served as Chief of Staff to Mayor Norquist and Deputy Commissioner of the Department of City Development. He received a public commendation from Mayor Cavalier Johnson upon his retirement. Read his full testimony here.
“Good evening. My name is Steve Jacquart. I was the Intergovernmental Coordinator at the
Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District (MMSD) for almost 19 years. I retired three years ago
and I’m the person who is the whistleblower who reached out to Common Ground.
The decision to go public with information showing the mismanagement of our sewage system
has been a tough and emotional one for me. I enjoyed working at MMSD and met many friends
through the agency. Some people there may prefer that these problems be kept quiet and not
shared with the public. But I keep thinking about the safety of the many thousands of people
who enjoy our beaches and waterways. I think about how we get our drinking water from Lake
Michigan.
I’m standing here because I strongly believe that taxpayers have a right to know about any
actions that threaten public health and the environment. I also believe that it is extremely
important for MMSD Commissioners to fully understand what caused the unprecedented
problems at the two wastewater treatment facilities before they vote on the next $700 million,
10-year operating contract.
I chose to work with Common Ground on this campaign because it already has a community
partnership with MMSD through the Every Drop Counts water conservation program. I want to
thank Common Ground, to thank all of you, for making these very important water quality and
public health issues front and center.
I worked in the Mayor’s Office and City Hall in Milwaukee for many years in the John Norquist
administration before being hired at MMSD in June of 2004 right after rain storms flooded the
Milwaukee Region. My first big assignment at the District was to staff Mayor Tom Barrett’s
MMSD Audit Committee which held several weeks of public testimony and issued a report with
recommendations on how to reform MMSD and better protect our water resources.
Tonight I’m going public to raise some serious problems facing MMSD. I’m speaking out to
ensure that the MMSD Commission has the opportunity to thoroughly investigate the
mismanagement of our wastewater treatment facilities. These problems need to be brought outand addressed in public before MMSD Commissioners select which private company will
operate our regional sewage system under the next operating contract.
Unfortunately, government agencies often react to public criticism by circling the wagons and
getting defensive. Or fighting back. I think that a much better approach for dealing with big
problems is to get the information out to the public. Get it all out. And then solve the problem.
I’m appealing to the good people at MMSD and everyone here in this room to take this
approach.
Since 2008, Veolia Water Milwaukee has been contracted to operate and maintain MMSD’s
regional wastewater treatment system. Beginning in 2016, multiple factors led to a massive
breakdown with processing biosolids at the Jones Island and South Shore Wastewater
Treatment Facilities. Biosolids are the organic materials derived from treated sewage sludge
through the wastewater treatment process. It’s what we turn into Milorganite fertilizer.
This breakdown in biosolids removal and disposal has resulted in reduced wastewater treatment
capacity, increasing the risk of sewage overflows and basement backups during rain storms.
Unfortunately, this reduced treatment capacity can also increase the volume of sewage that is
released into our rivers and Lake Michigan when we have overflows.
Another water quality and public health threat resulting from these biosolids management
troubles is that the treated wastewater being released into the lake is dirtier or more polluted. As
pointed out in Chart 10 in the Wisconsin Policy Forum report, Testing the Waters, Should
MMSD’s Privatization Framework Be Revisited (September 2022), MMSD is paying increased
fees or fines each year to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources for declining water
quality. The problem is so pervasive that the MMSD Commission voted to allow Veolia to violate
its contractual standards for treated wastewater as a measure to reduce the risk of sewage
overflows and save money for the rest of the contract period which ends in 2028.
In layman’s terms, this means that the treated wastewater MMSD discharges into Lake
Michigan every day contains higher levels of bacteria. This has been happening since sometime
around 2016 when this massive biosolids management problem began.
The statements I just outlined are all supported in public documents, including, MMSD
Commission documents, contract amendments, engineering technical reports, plant capacity
memos, and letters. Some of this information Common Ground has obtained through Freedom
of Information Requests. Having worked at MMSD, I can tell you it has many, many more public
documents that would bolster these statements. But this information has never been released to
the public or presented to the MMSD Commission in a coherent manner.
Tonight I join Common Ground in requesting that MMSD conduct an independent, third-party
performance audit of Veolia’s management of the regional sewage system before voting on the
next operating contract. There are many great, talented people who work at or used to work at
MMSD and Veolia. I know that many of these workers would like to speak up, but are afraid to do so. Conducting an independent, third-party performance audit would give workers the
opportunity to tell us what they think about the management of our wastewater system. It’s
absolutely critical that these perspectives be documented and shared directly with the great,
talented people on the MMSD Commission before it votes on the next operating contract.
In some ways, I feel like I still work for MMSD, so my advice to them is that when the contract
documents with the next private operator get signed, sign those documents here in this room
and invite the public. Tell the world how your decision will ensure that the two wastewater
treatment facilities once again run at their maximum rated capacities, while routinely meeting
contract effluent limits.
Thanks again to the good people at Common Ground. Thank you for standing with me, and
thank you for your commitment to clean water.”
Steve Jacquart served as the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District’s Intergovernmental
Coordinator from 2004 through 2023. Prior to that, he served in several roles in Milwaukee City
Hall, including as the Mayor’s Chief of Staff, Mayor’s Policy Director, and Deputy Commissioner
of the Department of City Development.