The New Mexico Environment Department is our State’s public watchdog protecting New Mexicans and New Mexico’s natural resources from commercial exploitation that, by design, puts the profits of the few before the good of the many. In New Mexico, the Environment Department (NMED), responsible for keeping our water and environment as clean as possible, is failing its watchdog duty. In the example below the Department is permitting, not preventing, the pollution of water—and it is doing so in the service of private commercial profit.

Right now, in Tesuque, NMED is allowing a luxury resort to gamble with the community’s drinking water. Bishop’s Lodge, an upscale retreat owned by Juniper Capital and managed by Auberge Resorts, has been granted approval to dispose of partially treated wastewater in a leach field immediately adjacent to Little Tesuque Creek. The risks are undeniable—highly permeable soil, a shallow water table, and a location in a FEMA flood zone—yet NMED has rubber-stamped the project despite the clear danger it poses to downstream drinking wells.

This isn’t just regulatory failure. This is regulatory capture—where agencies that are supposed to hold corporations accountable instead protect their interests at the expense of the public.

Regulatory capture is nothing new. Across the country, agencies that were created to enforce environmental laws have instead become enablers of corporate pollution. We’ve seen this in Flint, Michigan, where regulators allowed lead to poison drinking water. We’ve seen it with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which has rolled back clean water protections under industry pressure. And now, it’s happening in New Mexico, where NMED is walking away from its duty to safeguard public health.

What’s happening in Tesuque isn’t just a local problem—it’s a test case for how environmental regulations are applied across the state. If NMED is willing to bend the rules for Bishop’s Lodge, what’s stopping them from doing the same for the next big developer? How many other communities are at risk of water contamination because regulators are bending the knee to money and power instead of the health of New Mexico’s people.

Drought and a warming climate are already facing us.  Aquifers are depleting faster than they can recharge, and water scarcity, historically an issue in our State, is becoming urgent in our lifetimes. Now more than ever, we need the New Mexico Environment Department as our champion for human, animal and environmental health—not sidestepping the laws that they are mandated to enforce in order to accommodate luxury resorts and corporate takeover. 

The fight for clean water in Tesuque is a fight for accountability. If New Mexicans can’t rely on their regulators to enforce the law, then the system is broken. It’s time to demand answers from NMED: Why was this project approved? Why weren’t the full protections of the Water Quality Act enforced? Who is benefiting from this decision, and at whose expense?

New Mexicans deserve a government that works for them—not one that protects the interests of the wealthy while putting everyday people at risk. If NMED won’t uphold its mission, then it’s up to us to hold them accountable.

Because once our water is contaminated, there is no undoing the damage. And if the agencies meant to protect us won’t act, then it’s time for the people to demand a system that does.

Cathie Sullivan has been a resident of Tesuque, NM since 1966.