Bishop’s Lodge Resort has built a new state-of-the-art wastewater management plant on its property near Little Tesuque Creek. It’s now seeking a permit from the New Mexico Environment Department to operate the facility.
Public debate on the Bishop’s Lodge permit has been confusing - often producing conflicting and sometimes alarming information about how best to protect Tesuque’s water supply.
Residents find themselves in the difficult position of having to decide:
• Whose information and technical analysis is correct and can be trusted?
• Will the Environment Department's regulations effectively protect their water supply?
• Will lingering questions and concerns be adequately addressed through the permit process?
Earlier this year Protect Tesuque - a local non-profit organization dedicated to protecting the quality of Tesuque’s water supply - sued the Environment Department.
At issue was what water quality standards will be used to regulate Bishop’s Lodge discharge and are these regulations adequate to protect Tesuque’s water supply.
We asked Protect Tesuque and the Environment Department to describe why they believe the regulations they support are the best way to protect Tesuque’s water supply.
First we spoke with Rusty Day - a board member of Protect Tesuque. According to Day the liquid waste regulations his organization favors are a better way to ensure the safety of Tesuque’s water supply.
"They go way beyond the earlier regulations in prescribing the safe practices that must be followed in order to treat and dispose of liquid waste to ground," Day said.
Additionally Day says testing and monitoring requirements are inadequate under regulations the Environment Department favors.
"The ground surface water protection regulations had to have a list of 60 different contaminants. They are intended to protect our groundwater against contamination and degradation.
"None of those contaminants are being tested under the permit except for nitrates. There is no empirical basis to assume that what is being done will protect our groundwater against degradation," Day said.
The Environment Department provided a written response which states that ground and surface water protection regulations provide a higher level of protection than liquid waste regulations in this particular situation.
These regulations allow the Environment Department to design a site-specific discharge permit; the permit must be renewed every five years; and the department can modify the permit conditions if new issues or concerns emerge.
On July 8 the New Mexico Supreme Court ruled in favor of the ED—reaffirming the agency’s position about which regulations apply to the Bishop’s Lodge case.
The permit process - which had been put on hold - will restart in the coming weeks. There’ll be new public hearings and a comment period where the public can raise questions and concerns as needed.
Tesuque is not the only Santa Fe area community struggling with how to protect its groundwater and drinking water supply. The communities of La Cienega and La Cieneguilla have recently experienced severe contamination of domestic water wells that provide drinking water to residents.
We asked Santa Fe County Commissioner Camilla Bustamante, who represents these communities, what lessons she and her constituents have learned as a result of facing a drinking water contamination crisis that is raising lots of complex technical and scientific questions.
"If the community has a question about what is in their groundwater & in their drinking water - that answer needs to be provided in a way that it is easily understood by the community. It is incumbent on the regulators to provide that information in a way that allows that community member - the one who would have the hardest time understanding it - to understand it," said Bustamante.
Bustamante said one of the most important ways for communities to avoid major environmental problems - is for all the key parties to understand their roles and responsibilities in advance of a crisis.
According to Bustamante regulators, technical experts, the public and advocacy groups each have an important role to play in the public policy debate:
• Agencies responsible for managing environmental issues need to ensure appropriate regulations and personnel are in place and are prepared to enforce regulations.
• Those parties contributing information and analysis to the public debate - including regulators, technical experts, advocacy groups and members of the public - need to provide easily understood information from recognized and credible sources that help the average citizen make informed choices.
• Area residents play a pivotal role in protecting themselves and their families from environmental harm.
• Bustamante says residents need to stay informed about issues affecting their own health and safety and understand what actions they may need to take to protect themselves.
• She says residents on domestic water wells need to test their wells on a regular basis - even if they have to pay for testing - to ensure their water is safe to use and drink.
"I think the other lessons learned - that are and frankly have always been important - is for people with wells to test their well water regularly just to make sure that they don’t have any types of either bacterial or toxicological contaminants of concern. It really is incumbent on the well owner to just make sure that your well is still in good working condition. That’s part of our responsibility as well owners," said Bustamante.
As the Bishop’s Lodge permit process resumes, the ED explains the public has the right to provide comments on draft permit applications - including comments that might result in conditions being placed on that permit. '
Once a permit is issued, community members can report any non-compliance issues they observe and request the ED take action to address those issues.
DOWNLOAD:
Protect Tesuque
https://protecttesuque.org/
New Mexico Environment Department
https://www.env.nm.gov/
