At sewerage district, no news is good news

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No one gives a city’s sewerage system much thought — unless it’s not working.

Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District attorney Katherine Lazarski works hard to ensure there’s never reason to think of her employer.

“We do a lot of construction projects. Annually, our budget for capital construction is around $150 million, and my job to make sure we get the best value for that money for the taxpayers,” said Lazarski.

She joined the MMSD in 2008, coming from Foley & Lardner LLP where her primary focus was environmental law.

She needed to tackle the construction-law learning curve quickly, especially the fine points of public bidding, because on the horizon was one of the district’s largest and most complex projects to date: the construction of a 19-mile landfill gas pipeline from the Emerald Park Landfill in Muskego to the Jones Island Water Reclamation Facility in Milwaukee.

The pipeline will bring methane gas from the landfill to the plant. At the same time, MMSD will be replacing two electric-generating turbines at the plant with three new turbines.

“This will have a big impact on our bottom line,” Lazarski said. “We’ll be able to get a much lower price for gas that’s already being generated right here within our service area. Currently, they’re just flaring off the gas at the landfill, so this will take pollution out of the air.”

After college, Lazarski spent a year in the Jesuit Volunteer Corps in Iowa and worked for a couple of small businesses, including a general contractor, before deciding on a career in law.

She said construction law fascinates her.

“It can be a complicated, messy area of the law, especially when people don’t submit bids properly,” she said. “We sometimes have to make hard decisions about which bids to accept or reject, while still always looking for the best value for the taxpayer.

“I also do a lot of work with regard to resolving disputes that arise during the construction phase. Many of the contracts we enter into are quite large and complicated, and it’s hard to anticipate everything that can possibly happen and plan for it in the original contracting phase. Things always come up during the course of a job, and the question becomes, is this part of what we paid for, or is this something that’s new and different, and if it is, are we getting the best price for it?”