The town of Madrid celebrated the season with its annual Christmas parade this weekend. According to Michael Lancaster, owner of Calliope Gallery, over 3,000 people, mainly families, lined the streets of the small mining-turned-arts town, despite numerous townspeople’s concerns that an SFR article published last week would push people away from the small village.
In our food column from Dec. 4, Madrid restaurant owner Josh Novak openly discussed the wastewater issues at his restaurant The Hollar, expenses from which challenge the business’ existence and his livelihood. According to Novak, these sorts of issues plague not only him, but many other home and business owners in Madrid due to lack of a public sewer system and the high density of small lots in the center of town.
“Why does the state not come in and help us out? Why does the county not come in and decide to invest in a whole town’s sewage system?” Novak asked in his first interview with SFR.
Now, residents of Madrid fear his comments might keep tourists and visitors away. A link to the article was published in a private Madrid Facebook group on Sunday, which prompted numerous critical responses.
“My problem is with portraying the town as having this big septic problem that’s going on all the time and you can walk around town and see sewage, essentially. That’s the impression that I feel, and many other people feel, was given by the article. That’s what is at stake,” Jim Brulet, a carpenter who has been working in Madrid for 13 years, tells SFR over phone.
While plenty of others contested Novak’s original claim that “sometimes you walk through town and see people’s septic systems overflowing,” nobody SFR spoke with could deny the reality that growth in the small community has led to stressed septic systems. The question is, what is the extent of the problem?
When SFR spoke with Novak, he also described septic issues he’d had at a private residence a quarter-mile from the restaurant, issues which prevented him from inhabiting the location or re-selling it without a $30,000 septic system replacement. He also mentioned several other residents who were forced to sell their homes or businesses because their septic systems were failing and too expensive to repair. SFR reached out to these people, but we’ve yet to hear back; Novak suggests the backlash he received might prevent others from coming forward.
“ I am dealing with some major hatred coming my way at the moment and don’t know who will be willing to talk,” he says via email.
Town planning documents show the people of Madrid have been committed to improving their wastewater management for at least 11 years. Page 14 of The Town of Madrid Community Plan, which was released in 2008, says, “the size and proximity of the residential lots creates wastewater problems.” The town plan goes on to mention at least five specific problems, including “the high density of individual septic systems … can create a potential for nitrate and other contamination of the ground water,” and “some septic systems are not adequately maintained which poses a potential danger of ground water contamination from leaking or improperly operating systems.”
That document was formally approved by a committee of 18 Madrid residents, as well as the Santa Fe County Board of Commissioners. It was also updated in 2015, noting, “there is a need to incorporate alternative wastewater management strategies into future planning and development.”
Rebecca Nafey, the treasurer of Madrid Water (a mutual domestic consumer association, previously a cooperative and a major player in the community plan) paints a slightly different picture.
“Most houses in this town only have two or three people living in them; we’ve had very little sewage problems. I’ve sold real estate in this town for 15 years and I only came across maybe two real problems,” she tells SFR. She says allegations of widespread problems by Novak are “simply not true … generally speaking, if somebody has a septic problem, they call a septic company to get it pumped and repaired.”
According to Nafey, Madrid Water and the Landowner’s Association began plans with the New Mexico Rural Water Association and the state Environment Department to implement a modern community sewage system. Proposed actions in the 2008 plan include “coordinating with the state Environment Department to investigate appropriate septic systems for community and individual use as well as small scale wastewater treatment systems.” An acre of land, owned by the Landowner’s Association, has already been designated as a “sewer lot” for future development of a community leach field or lagoon. Madrid Water hopes to get updated engineering reports and apply for state and federal grants to help build the system.
“It could take a couple or three years, if we really got moving on it,” according to Nafey.
But if Madrid keeps growing as it has been, that might not be soon enough. Chuck Aspinwall, who defines himself as Madrid’s “unofficial lawyer” for the past 35 years, says he has been using septic systems since the day he was born. According to him, Madrid doesn’t experience problems as dramatic as Novak described.
“It’s not accurate that it is a wholesale problem, which is causing stink and running effluent in the town,” Aspinwall says. “That’s essentially not so.”
He goes on to say, however, that “Everybody has a problem with septic. Septic in a non-rural setting is always problematic.”
In Madrid, where closely-packed lots prevent the use of full-sized leach fields, “The increase in the number of people and the pressure on the general topic of disposal has increased several-fold,” Aspinwall continues, “so the problem is there, the problem is gonna get worse. The problem today is not with effluent running down the street, or the smell, other than when The Hollar gets into that kind of problem.”
Editor’s note: A previous version of this article misspelled Jim Brulet’s name.
