Downstream from leach field, well user has questions

I believe Scott Karns’ piece (“New wastewater system is state of the art at Bishop’s Lodge,” My View, May 3) misses the mark, instead towing the company line as he and all his neighbors in the Hills and Villas have been granted an anonymous license to pollute that shields them from the accountability applicable to other homeowners.

No one is suggesting that the treatment plant is not a step in the right direction, but the issue is not what it filters or how bad it was before, but what is not filtered and allowed to be saturated in a leach field without regulation.

This is not a municipal treatment plant with its safeguards, transparency and accountability. Can we rely on a venture capital firm like Juniper Capital, here for the short term and to turn a profit, to provide adequate maintenance? I have seen their “advancement in wastewater treatment” as white sludge from their trout pond was discharged a few months ago into my yard via Little Tesuque Creek, despite a promise not to dump directly into the creek. Karns ignores that the permit application to discharge his waste and that of the lodge allows them to keep discharging for many months even after contamination is detected.

His statement that he “values ecological stewardship” is surprising as he and his other neighbors are, via the proposed permit from Bishop’s Lodge, free to dump hazardous chemicals down their drains without violating any regulation. While those of us with our own septics are prohibited from dumping hazardous materials like turpentine, paint, pesticides, pharmaceuticals and other volatile chemicals, the 80 homes he represents and the lodge are under this proposal permit free to dump, dump, dump.

How can he believe this “protects public health?” His sole focus seems to be on “pathogens, nitrates and phosphorous,” not addressing such hazardous chemicals, pharmaceuticals and PFAS.

Karns and his homeowners association fail to address that the problem is not Bishop’s Lodge having a leach field, but that we believe it to be an undersized field placed in a FEMA flood zone adjacent to Tesuque Creek and some 4-8 feet above the aquifer at certain times of the year. As the Environment Department recently wrote to residents — the groundwater level “most likely affected is at a depth of approximately 23 feet.”

That water table provides the only source of drinking water for hundreds of downstream neighbors. As the department also wrote in the public hearing announcement, “The discharge may contain water contaminants with concentrations above standards and may contain toxic pollutants.” At 30,000 gallons a day into a leach field designed for 6,000, this seems to be not “dispersant” but “concentration.”

The Hills and Villas residents that Karns represents have each paid thousands of dollars to fund this system. One has to ask, were they sold a shiny treatment plant with potentially deadly results for their neighbors and future generations?

Eric Sirotkin is a Tesuque resident and depends on the third well downstream.