Bishop's Lodge treated wastewater plans continue to rile neighbors

The 100-room luxury hotel’s old treatment plant, built in the mid-1970s, hasn’t functioned properly for years, compelling the lodge’s owners to pump raw effluent into trucks that haul it to the Santa Fe wastewater treatment plant, a method that was deemed inefficient, costly and unsustainable.

The EPA is taking public comment on the new plant and the federal discharge permit until July 1. That prompted local officials to organize a community gathering last week so people could air their concerns and grievances.

About 200 people packed a Tesuque fire station, with the atmosphere tense and at times hostile as area residents grilled lodge representatives, who sought to assure them the package plant was a state-of-the-art system that would cleanse the wastewater to the highest degree possible.

“Bishop’s Lodge community is committed to caring for the land in which the resort and its neighbors reside,” said Chris Kaplan, who represents Juniper Capital, which owns the lodge. “With everything that we strive to do, it’s to put our best foot forward and try to build the most advanced treatment facility.”

The EPA’s permit would allow up to 60,000 gallons to be released daily into the creek, though Kaplan said they only plan to build the system’s first phase with a capacity to treat half that volume.

The resort now produces 14,000 to 16,000 gallons daily of wastewater. That amount is expected to increase to just shy of 20,000 gallons a day after the lodge adds a spa, a pool and a fitness center, Jessica Rothschild, a lodge spokeswoman, wrote in an email.

Several attendees expressed anger over Bishop’s Lodge not notifying them about a project that would discharge treated wastewater into a creek that flows through neighborhoods and the Tesuque, Pojoaque and San Ildefonso pueblos. They also were upset about learning of the project two weeks before the EPA’s deadline for public comment.

Santa Fe County commissioners at a Friday special hearing approved sending a letter to the EPA requesting the agency extend the comment period by 90 days.

County Commissioner Justin Greene, who helped organize the community meeting, told residents the lodge had asked the county at one time to help fund the treatment plant, but officials said “no.”

“We have no play in this,” Greene said.

The plant will have multiple screening devices that filter out sewage, copper and zinc in the winter, and phosphorous that can generate algae in the creek, said Gary Lee, who handles the project’s engineering. The system adds bacteria to consume the smaller bits of organic matter, he added.

The wastewater also will be disinfected with ultraviolet light, Lee said.

Sludge that’s removed from the effluent will be placed in a reed bed to decompose and eventually turn into a compost, Lee said.

All of these treatments create the highest class of reused water under New Mexico’s guidelines, he said.

This plant will be “light years beyond” the typical residential septic systems, in which thousands of leach fields spread untreated effluent over a larger area, said Jason Herman, program manager for the state Environment Department’s Groundwater Quality Bureau.

“It would be like comparing a Yugo to a Ferrari,” Herman said.

But residents still found much to criticize and question.

Eric Sirotkin, who lives not far downstream from the lodge, said while it was good the plant will produce cleaner wastewater, it still should not be dumped into the creek. Instead, the owners should inject the treated water into a leach field or haul it away as they now do with the sewage, he said.

The company also made no good-faith effort to consult with the pueblos and other residents who would be affected, Sirotkin told The New Mexican in a later interview.

Lodge representatives should meet with experts from the tribes and the region to hammer out a solution that might cost more money but would be one everyone can live with, Sirotkin said. Right now, the lodge is aiming to spread the wastewater via the creek to neighboring properties because it’s more expedient, he said.

“The fast track they’re on has to stop,” Sirotkin said.

One resident expressed concerns about the plant not filtering out pharmaceuticals and PFAS, an array of chemical compounds linked to cancer and other health problems.

Kaplan said there is no regulatory oversight on either of the pollutants for wastewater, a comment that drew grumbles.

Jorge Estrada, state Environment Department spokesman, wrote in an email this is basically true. The state doesn’t have numeric water-quality standards for PFAS or pharmaceuticals and, therefore, can’t require specific limits for these compounds within effluent, Estrada wrote.

However, the EPA did include monitoring and reporting requirements for PFAS in the draft permit, he wrote. The purpose is to better understand the facility’s potential PFAS discharges, which will provide data that could be used in future permitting decisions.

General effluent monitoring is required under any discharge permit, Estrada added. The lodge already has monitoring wells, and regulators will determine if more will be needed under the new permit.

The state conducted an analysis to ensure the project won’t degrade the creek and will also ensure the discharges meet state water quality standards, he wrote.

One area resident said he supports the new treatment plant, agreeing it’s a marked improvement from the antiquated leach-field system the lodge used for decades.

Those who’d prefer to inject the treated wastewater into a leach field don’t seem to understand that it will seep back into the aquifer from which they draw their well water, said Peter Wurzburger, a resident of Bishop’s Lodge Hills & Villas.

“We have EPA. We have NMED,” Wurzburger said. “They are paid professionals. We either believe in science or we don’t.”