Resort’s ability to evaluate effluent disputed on final day of hearing

Steven Fuson, the wastewater operator for a newly constructed treatment plant at Bishop’s Lodge resort, was at the center of testimony Tuesday morning at the Capitol as a state public hearing for the luxury resort’s wastewater permit application continued into its second and final day.

The hearing, which started Monday and came to a close Tuesday after hours of testimony from employees of the state Environment Department and community members, served as another opportunity for residents of Tesuque to express their opposition to the resort’s proposal, with some of them calling on the lodge to pump its wastewater to a municipal water plant in Santa Fe.

The neighborhood group Protect Tesuque has asked a hearing officer to rule the Environment Department would be allowing the resort to bypass “mandatory wastewater treatment and disposal regulations adopted over 50 years ago” by issuing a draft permit for the lodge’s new leach field.

Felicia Orth, the hearing officer contracted to assess the case, has about a month to create a report and make a recommendation to Environment Department Secretary James Kenney, who will have the final say later this summer on whether Bishop’s Lodge’s permit application is approved by the state.

Tuesday’s hearing allowed lawyers representing the state Environment Department, Protect Tesuque and Bishop’s Lodge to offer closing arguments. Department lawyer Christal Weatherly defended the permit.

“The Groundwater Quality Bureau of the New Mexico Environment Department has shown that the draft discharge permit for Bishop’s Lodge was properly issued pursuant to the requirements of the Water Quality Act and the Ground and Surface Water Protection regulations,” Weatherly said.

Cristina Mulcahy, counsel for Bishop’s Lodge, asked Fuson whether he would be able to detect the presence of certain e±uent constituents in the waste stream amid concerns from neighbors about downstream wells and groundwater being negatively impacted by the lodge’s wastewater.

“First or all, we would see indicators,” Fuson said. “We are constantly monitoring the variables in the environment of the wastewater. We would see things like … drop or raise in pH, that sort of thing.”

Fuson’s comments followed Thomas Hnasko, attorney for Protect Tesuque, who indicated Monday he believes the resort would not be able to determine and treat “unauthorized materials entering the waste stream.” The risk, he said, would be borne by property owners downstream. He has said Bishop’s Lodge would not be required to test for some materials of concern under the permit it is seeking from the state.

“We have a situation where the disposal field is placed probably in the most hazardous location it could be placed on this property, right at the edge of the facility, so that any mishap, if one were to occur, would immediately affect downstream neighbors,” Hnasko said Tuesday. “That’s the problem.”

“The problem is, because of the unique location of this facility in relation to its downstream neighbors, it’s the known unknowns that we have to be wary of,” he continued.

Protect Tesuque also recently filed a petition with the state Supreme Court asking the court to order the department to apply the state’s liquid waste regulations rather than the ground and surface water protections, arguing the latter are less rigorous.

Bishop’s Lodge has built an on-site leach field and new treatment plant on its property to discharge treated wastewater. But the plan has drawn sustained pushback from residents concerned about the proximity of the new leach field to Little Tesuque Creek, leading Protect Tesuque to challenge the permit application, which seeks to up discharge limits on the property from nearly 15,000 gallons a day to 30,000 gallons.

An old wastewater treatment plant at Bishop’s Lodge, built in the mid-1970s, hasn’t functioned properly for years, leading the owners to pump wastewater into trucks and haul it to the city’s treatment plant — a method that has been described as inefficient and costly.

Bishop’s Lodge representatives argue its plan to use the leach field — about 75 to 100 feet from the creek — is environmentally sound and will comply with state and federal environmental standards. Treated water will be used for irrigation on the property during parts of the year.

“In his opening, Mr. Hnasko promised you we don’t know anything about Bishop’s Lodge’s wastewater beyond the four constituents regulated in the draft permit,” Mulcahy said during her closing argument. “But in fact, we do know. The lodge has sampled for both PFAS and heavy metals, and the sampling results demonstrate that PFAS and heavy metals in the lodge’s e±uent were entirely undetectable or well within groundwater quality standards.”

After treatment of the wastewater, she said, “the water quality is so clean that it can be used in irrigation of food crops like fruit trees.”