Standing with 30 Common Ground leaders, a 2nd whistleblower, Greg Gryskiewicz, went public on Wednesday. Greg was a machinist who operated the treatment plants for 15 years. He left in 2024 for ethical reasons. Read his report here. In total, 26 whistleblowers have now contacted us—10 in just the past two weeks.
Here’s some of what Greg had to say:
“MMSD and Veolia’s cycle of ‘run to fail and not fix’ has led to complete asset destruction. Many equipment orders disappear with no trace, many are closed out without being fixed and many are rejected for absolutely no reason. MMSD would often bring in brand new equipment that was either installed incorrectly or inferior to begin with.”
“We had weekly meetings where we talked about the same broken equipment for years and it became like a comedy show. I would tell the managers, ‘Hey, I’m going into a rain event, I have half of the screening equipment that this facility should have, and we have no way to bypass it. If you put too much flow through this place it’s going to flood into the streets. But they already knew, and did nothing.”
Despite this, MMSD Director Kevin Shafer told WUWM he is “totally confident” in Veolia, and Veolia internally bragged to employees about how “MMSD is standing behind us.”
Why is MMSD locking arms with Veolia? Shouldn’t MMSD be neutral in the Veolia or Jacobs contract decision? Or has the $700 million September contract been pre-decided?
See initial coverage of our press conference:
Spectrum1: Second Common Ground whistleblower speaks publicly about MMSD mismanagement claims
WUWM: Second whistleblower shares concerns about management of MMSD wastewater treatment plants
Urban Milwaukee: Common Ground Releases New Allegations Against Veolia
FOX6: Milwaukee wastewater whistleblower alleges plant mismanagement
BizTimes: Second whistleblower accuses Veolia of mismanagement at MMSD facilities
620 WTMJ: Second whistleblower alleges MMSD operator mismanagement at wastewater facilities