Bishop’s Lodge asks court to block protests near entrance

Resort’s request for restraining order is latest salvo in legal battle on wastewater

Bishop’s Lodge is asking the courts to clamp down on protests against its new wastewater treatment plant, accusing demonstrators of “dangerous obstruction of traffic, harassment, trespass and invasion of privacy.”

On July 2, the luxury resort filed a complaint in state District Court in Santa Fe against the group Protect Tesuque over weekly protests on Bishop’s Lodge Road, which it says are becoming disruptive and unsafe for guests and protesters alike.

In a June 13 letter to Protect Tesuque and counsel Tom Hnasko included in the lodge’s filing, a lawyer for the resort wrote the protesters were creating a dangerous situation that the lodge did not consent to and was “not responsible for.”

“Several individuals have stepped in front of moving

vehicles on the highway and in Lodge’s driveway,” Cristina Mulcahy wrote. “Children have been present during some of these activities and we are concerned about the dangerous condition that Protect Tesuque’s activities are creating for drivers, pedestrians, demonstrators — including children — and Lodge guests.”

The case has been assigned to Judge Francis Mathew.

The resort is seeking to ban protesting along N.M. 590 within a “safety buffer” on Bishops Lodge Road from Pedregal Place to Senda Vieja. The complaint alleges protesters have been blocking vehicles with their bodies on a blind turn, bothering guests and staff, lining the roadway with cars and putting traffic cones in a deceleration lane near the lodge’s entrance.

It also alleges the group flew a drone over the lodge without permission and has been displaying “inflammatory” and “demonstrably false” signs on the road without a permit, including ones telling people not to drink the water, accusing the lodge of pumping “poison” into water supplies and implying the water at Bishop’s Lodge causes cancer.

Protect Tesuque snapped back, referring to the complaint as a strategic lawsuit against public participation, or SLAPP suit, intended to intimidate and “muzzle the exercise of First Amendment rights through false accusations.”

“The accusations in the complaint are not only false, they are defamatory,” a statement from the group says. “Protesters have not blocked roads, trespassed on private property, harassed guests or employees, or engaged in any of the hyperbolic behaviors described in the Resort’s complaint.”

Santa Fe County sheriff ’s deputies went to the area March 8 in response to a protest, sheriff ’s office spokesperson Denise Womack-Avila wrote in an email.

”At the time, they did not observe pedestrians in, or blocking the roadway,” Womack-Avila wrote.

Patrols were conducted June 7 as well to ensure safety for drivers and protesters, she wrote. No incident reports were prepared in response to the protests.

Mulcahy wrote in an email to the move for a temporary restraining order came after “failed attempts” to encourage the demonstrators to ensure public access to the road.

Drones have been flown over the pool and “other intimate locations,” Mulcahy wrote, and footage taken has then been posted online, violating the privacy of guests. She claimed the group had trespassed onto private property and violated state and local laws against harassment, excessive sound and public nuisance.

”Because of these issues and more, we moved for a temporary restraining order in the name of public safety for all,” Mulcahy wrote.

The lodge’s attempt to get a restraining order against protests is just the latest salvo in a battle between the resort and some Tesuque residents that has been ongoing since last year, when Bishop’s Lodge replaced its 1970s wastewater treatment plant with a membrane bioreactor plant.

The old plant, which the lawsuit describes as “antiquated,” had been malfunctioning, requiring the owners to truck raw e±uent to Santa Fe’s wastewater treatment plant — a temporary, expensive and inefficient solution, they said.

But local residents were rankled by a plan to discharge treated e±uent from the new plant into Little Tesuque Creek. The conflict between the lodge and Protect Tesuque, which was formed to oppose the lodge’s wastewater plans, has continued to play out over the past months.

In May, a wastewater permit hearing grew heated, and Protect Tesuque asked the state Supreme Court weigh in on their argument that the state Environment Department was applying the wrong environmental standard.

In June, the state’s highest court halted the process after Protect Tesuque asked them to intervene, but earlier this month the court ruled against Protect Tesuque, allowing the permitting decision process to continue.