MMSD Envisions 2,500 New Jobs: $180.4 Million Stimulus Request Would Fund Sewer, Methane Pipeline Projects

Jan. 18--The Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District could help create more than 2,500 jobs this year in the local construction industry if the district receives a requested $180.4 million slice of the proposed federal $825 billion economic recovery spending plan, a district official said.

MMSD's wish list of 31 construction projects circulated to President-elect Barack Obama's transition team and the Wisconsin congressional delegation includes a new $25 million initiative to reduce leaks of rain and melting snow into private residential sewers in the 28 communities served by the district, district Executive Director Kevin Shafer said.

An estimated 357 workers could be hired to install lining in the pipes connecting homes to street sewers. Leaks of storm water into the pipes are a major cause of sewer overflows in the district's service area.

Hiring 86 workers as part of a separate $6 million project that would speed the pace of disconnecting downspouts from the residential pipes in some Milwaukee neighborhoods would further reduce flows of storm water to street sewers.

Also on the list is a proposed 17-mile pipeline that would carry methane gas from the Veolia ES Emerald Park landfill in Muskego to the Jones Island sewage treatment plant, Shafer said. Methane could be burned in sewage sludge dryers at the Milorganite fertilizer production facility to reduce the district's use of natural gas and cut utility costs.

About 314 workers could be hired for the pipeline and related work at Jones Island. Enough methane is released by decomposing garbage within the landfill to fuel the Milorganite dryers for 20 to 40 years, according to a preliminary estimate.

The district could hire contractors to begin each of the 31 projects within 90 to 120 days, meeting the timetable for so-called shovel-ready construction activities sought by the Obama team.

"Our goal is to get people working," Shafer said.

The wish list is endorsed by the Wisconsin Underground Contractors Association for just that reason.

"We have severe unemployment in the construction trades that we haven't seen since the early 1980s," said Richard Wanta, executive director of the contractors association. "If we can get people working again, we believe it will help the state economy.

"When municipalities and home builders aren't building, we're not doing anything," Wanta said.

MMSD also requested funding for several environmental improvement projects, known as green infrastructure, that would reduce storm-water runoff from parking lots and roofs to street sewers in the district's 411-square-mile service area. Total cost: $11.5 million. Jobs created: 163.

Among the other requested stimulus projects are upgrades of sewage treatment plants and large regional sewers, and flood control efforts.

A draft economic recovery package released Thursday by the House Appropriations Committee suggests MMSD will not receive every dollar it sought.

The draft legislation includes $6 billion for the nation's wastewater utilities, with half distributed as low-interest loans and half awarded as grants, according to the National Association of Clean Water Agencies. The group had urged Congress to include $20 billion in the stimulus package for wastewater projects alone. Shafer is vice president of the association.

Of the $6 billion, an estimated $164.4 million would come to Wisconsin, a spokeswoman for the national association said Friday. That figure is more than eight times larger than the $18.9 million in federal dollars distributed to the state in 2008 to help finance wastewater projects.

About $102.9 million worth of the projects on MMSD's wish list -- primarily the treatment plant and regional sewer upgrades -- are in the 2009 capital budget, and construction is scheduled to begin this year, Shafer said.

For each dollar of stimulus package funds received by the district for those projects, Shafer said, he would ask the district's 11-person governing commission to move up other needed facility upgrades now scheduled for 2010 and 2011, boosting the number of jobs generated by wastewater construction contracts this year.

The other $77.5 million worth of proposed stimulus projects, including the private residential sewer work and the landfill methane pipeline, are not in the budget. Those proposals and others, with a promise of 1,106 jobs, would not be done this year unless they are financed by additional federal dollars coming in to the district, Shafer said.