Bishop’s Lodge needs to respect neighbors

I’ve called Tesuque home for over 40 years, and like many others here I came for the natural beauty, the land and the chance to build a life rooted in community.

I’ve spent the last four decades sculpting both in metal and in soil — raising a home and studio on five acres, building rainwater catchment systems and respecting the rhythms of the land.

But today, I’m speaking out not as an artist, but as a neighbor who is deeply alarmed.

The New Mexico Environment Department has permitted Bishop’s Lodge, a luxury resort owned by Juniper Capital and managed by Auberge Resorts, to dispose of partially treated wastewater into a leach field just feet from Little Tesuque Creek — a waterway that runs through our community and into the aquifers that feed our wells.

This isn’t a hypothetical risk. Many of us rely on shallow wells for our drinking water, and the water table beneath the leach field sits alarmingly close to the surface. In these conditions, water moves quickly underground, carving pathways that endure.

Once contamination starts, there’s no turning back.

This is about science, trust and the basic responsibility of regulators to protect public health. In Tesuque, families have lived here for generations, carefully managing water issues, respecting the acequias, and adjusting their lives around drought and scarcity.

My own household has spent decades building passive water systems, using water sparingly and relying on catchment because we’ve always known water is life — especially in the Southwest.

That’s why it is so distressing to watch a large, well-funded corporation with access to better options take shortcuts that threaten the rest of us.

Bishop’s Lodge is no longer the small inn it once was. It’s now a sprawling resort, with plans to discharge up to 60,000 gallons of treated wastewater per day into a system that is already undersized and dangerously close to the water table. Current operations are reportedly already pushing 15,000 gallons daily — before the proposed expansion.

I join my Tesuque neighbors to protest regularly at the Bishop’s Lodge because we don’t want to wake up in a few years to find that our water has been contaminated — and be told, “You were right, but it’s too late now.” We have a narrow window to prevent irreversible damage. This is our chance.

I’ve looked into alternative systems — many resorts have installed responsible wastewater treatment technologies. Some alternate between multiple leach fields to avoid oversaturation, while others build larger systems at higher elevations for better filtration. Bishop’s Lodge, with all its resources and capital, has chosen not to invest in those solutions.

To the Environment Department and Juniper Capital, I ask this: Would you be comfortable drawing your own drinking water from wells directly downstream of your leach field? Because that is what you are asking your neighbors to do. You are gambling with our health and the future of our community.

We deserve better. We deserve a state that values clean water and enforces its environmental laws. And we deserve corporate neighbors who act like stewards, not extractors.

Tesuque is not going to sit quietly. We’ve lived with the land for generations, and we intend to protect it — for ourselves, for our neighbors and for the future.

Once contamination starts, there’s no turning back.