Tesuque residents all stirred up over resort's new proposed wastewater permit

SANTA FE — The fight over a Santa Fe luxury resort’s new proposed wastewater discharge permit drew more than 100 local residents to the Roundhouse on Monday for the first day of a public hearing that was part town hall meeting, part legal drama.

One after one, most area residents expressed concern, if not outright anger, about possible groundwater contamination in the Tesuque area caused by the release of up to 30,000 gallons per day of treated wastewater by Bishop’s Lodge.

“This puts our community in danger,” said Bernadette Romero Jaramillo, who said the treated wastewater would be released into a disposal field located within a local flood zone near Little Tesuque Creek.

But wastewater experts and attorneys representing Bishop’s Lodge insisted a recently-installed wastewater system used by the resort and a nearby subdivision is state of the art and designed to filter out contaminants down to 0.04 microns — or just a fraction of the size of a human hair.

“The law and the science must govern this permit hearing,” said Christina Mulcahy, a Santa Fe-based attorney representing Bishops Lodge.

She accused local opponents of “fear-mongering,” and held up a jar of treated effluent for attendees’ inspection at one point during Monday’s hearing.

That prompted some residents to call out “Drink it!”, a challenge that went unheeded by Mulcahy and drew warnings from the hearing officer presiding over the case.

The public hearing that began Monday came about after local opposition to the new permit erupted last year. A nonprofit group called Protect Tesuque has helped organize the opposition, in part by holding weekly protests at the entrance to the Bishop’s Lodge Resort.

The group has already tried unsuccessfully to get the permit denied, and has also asked the state Supreme Court to intervene in the case.

The dispute has highlighted simmering tensions between local residents and tourists in the pricey, quasi-rural area north of Santa Fe. It’s also prompted signs to be posted along Bishops Lodge Road, which runs through the village of Tesuque.

Several Tesuque Pueblo representatives also testified Monday, with former tribal governor Mark Mitchell requesting more data monitoring and for the disposal field, or leech field, to be relocated.

He said Tesuque Pueblo, which is located downstream from the wastewater treatment facility, uses creek water for ceremonial purposes.

“We found in the past that when people got sick, that’s where they got sick from,” Mitchell said.

But not all area residents spoke in opposition to the new wastewater treatment permit, as some residents of Bishop’s Lodge Hills and Villas, the adjacent subdivision that features about 80 homes and home sites, showed up to testify in favor.

Bishop’s Lodge’s attorneys also pointed out the high-end resort has held a state wastewater discharge permit since 1979. The new permit would represent the eighth renewal of the permit, but the first since the new treatment facility was built.

It would specifically allow water from toilets, sinks, bathtubs and washing machines that is submitted to a multi-step filtering and treatment process to be discharged into the ground via a piping system. The treatment process includes exposure to ultraviolet light to destroy disease-causing organisms.

While not all state permit applications trigger public hearings, the high-profile nature of the Bishop’s Lodge case and a request from opponents led to this week’s hearings, said Environment Department spokeswoman Muna Habib.

Felicia Orth, the hearing officer appointed to the case, will issue a report and recommendation on the permit application within 60 days after the public hearing concludes, Habib added.

Environment Secretary James Kenney, who did not attend Monday’s hearing in person, will then make the final decision on whether to approve or deny the new permit.