Most Tesuque buyers already know to ask about the well. Fewer know that a form sitting in a drawer at Santa Fe County right now determines whether that well owner pays $10,000 less to connect to a new water system, or misses the chance to connect at all. The deadline for that decision is not a date you can circle. It is a road crew, and it is already moving down the corridor that runs from Pojoaque through Bishop's Lodge Road into Tesuque.
This is worth understanding before you write an offer on a well-water property here, and worth checking on before you list one.
The corridor this actually covers
The Pojoaque Basin Regional Water System is a joint infrastructure project between Santa Fe County, the State of New Mexico, the U.S. Department of the Interior, and the Pueblos of Nambé, Pojoaque, San Ildefonso, and Tesuque. It draws water from the Rio Grande, treats it, and delivers it through more than 150 miles of new pipeline to both Pueblo and non-Pueblo households in the basin. Santa Fe County has named the corridor explicitly: NM-502, NM-503, and "285 from Pojoaque to Tesuque, and Bishop's Lodge Road." If your property sits on well water anywhere along that stretch, you are inside the project area, whether you have heard about it yet or not.
The system is being built in three phases. Phase 1, which includes the project's water intake on the Pueblo of San Ildefonso, was reported as more than halfway complete as of February 2026. Phase 2, which explicitly includes the Pueblos of Nambé, Tesuque, and Pojoaque according to the Bureau of Reclamation's project page, is still in design with a projected completion date of 2029. Phase 3 is described by the county as currently being designed, its final layout still dependent on how many landowners opt in.
A dispute older than the interstate highway system
The reason this settlement exists at all traces back to 1966, when the New Mexico State Engineer filed suit against every water rights claimant in the Pojoaque River Basin to sort out who had rights to how much water. The case became known as Aamodt, named for R. Lee Aamodt, the first of more than 1,000 defendants eventually named. Santa Fe County's own summary of the litigation calls it the oldest active federal court case in the United States. It took until 2010 for Congress to pass the Aamodt Litigation Settlement Act, until 2013 for a final settlement agreement to be signed by all parties, and until 2017 for a final decree to be entered by the court. The Pojoaque Basin Regional Water System is the physical infrastructure that settlement requires.
That six-decade timeline matters for one reason: it explains why so few residents understand a project that is now moving fast through their own front yards.
Four boxes on one form
The mechanism that actually affects a Tesuque property owner is called the Well Election Acceptance Form, filed with the U.S. District Court and coordinated through Santa Fe County's public works office. It gives every eligible well owner four options:
- Fully connect to the new system and retire the well.
- Connect to the system for indoor water use, while keeping the well active for outdoor irrigation, gardens, or orchards.
- Decline to connect at all.
- Elect to connect only when the property is transferred to a new owner.
Option 2 matters more than it might first appear. It means choosing into the county-subsidized connection does not require giving up the well that supports a garden, an orchard, or pasture. It simply separates domestic water from irrigation water, something already familiar to anyone who has dealt with acequia rights in this valley.
"It's important for the County to know who is interested in connecting to the system now."
That is Santa Fe County Project Manager Scott Kaseman, quoted in a February 2026 county release, explaining why the county wants the paperwork filed well ahead of construction. The reason becomes clear once you see what happens on either side of that filing.
The deadline that moves toward you
Here is the part that surprises most people: there is no single project-wide cutoff date. The deadline is tied to construction physically reaching a specific road segment, and it has already played out multiple times in 2026 alone. In El Rancho, the county announced that residents needed to file their Well Election form before April 2, 2026, because pipeline construction along County Road 84 was set to begin April 6. A separate notice in May 2026 asked property owners along a different stretch of County Road 84 to respond before June 5, ahead of a waterline installation "in the coming weeks." A related closure on CR 84 near the Y intersection with CR 84B was scheduled to run three to four months starting in late April 2026.
None of those specific closures were on Bishop's Lodge Road itself, but they show the pattern that will eventually repeat there, since that corridor is named in the same county project documents as part of the system's footprint. As Phase 2 design work continues toward its 2029 target for the Tesuque, Nambé, and Pojoaque area, similar segment-by-segment notices are the mechanism by which this reaches individual Tesuque properties. Nobody gets a single mailed reminder months in advance. The window opens and closes as the crew works its way up the road.
What filing early actually buys you
The financial difference is not small, and it is documented directly by the county:
| If you file before construction reaches your road | If you wait until after |
|---|---|
| Santa Fe County pays up to $10,000 toward your connection | You pay the full cost yourself, estimated between $8,000 and $12,000 |
| Your property is included in the final pipeline design and gets a service connection point | You may not be able to connect at all once the design is finalized |
| Filing also protects you against future priority water calls during drought | No priority-call protection unless the form has been filed |
That last row is the one worth sitting with. New Mexico water law runs on seniority. In times of shortage, senior rights holders, which in this basin includes the four settlement Pueblos, can ask a water master to curtail junior users. Filing the Well Election form, regardless of which of the four options you choose, is what formally protects a non-Pueblo well owner from that kind of curtailment under the settlement agreement. In other words, even a property owner who selects Option 3 and declines to ever connect still gains legal standing they did not have before filing.
As of a February 2026 report, roughly 300 non-Pueblo households across the entire basin had opted in. Given the scale of the project and the number of eligible well owners along the full corridor from Pojoaque to Tesuque, that is a small fraction of who could benefit. Most people simply have not heard about this yet, which is exactly why it belongs on a Tesuque buyer's due diligence list and a Tesuque seller's disclosure conversation.
What this means at the closing table
If you are buying a well-water property along Bishop's Lodge Road or the 285 corridor toward Pojoaque, ask directly whether the current owner has filed a Well Election Acceptance Form, and if so, which of the four options they selected. A property where the seller already filed and locked in Option 4, connect on transfer, hands the incoming buyer a cleaner path to a subsidized hookup than starting from zero.
If you are selling, filing before you list costs nothing and can be a genuine point of differentiation for buyers who understand what it means. A property with priority-call protection already in place, and a documented path to a $10,000 subsidy instead of a full-cost connection, is a small but real advantage in a negotiation.
The form and instructions are available through Santa Fe County's public works office, and questions can be directed to Project Manager Scott Kaseman at 505-992-9887. If you want the broader picture of how acequia rights and irrigation obligations work in this valley separately from this settlement, we have covered that ground in our guide to life in Tesuque.
FAQ
Does this affect homes in Tesuque already on municipal or community water? No. The Well Election Acceptance Form and its subsidy only apply to properties currently relying on a private well within the project corridor.
If I file and connect, do I lose my well? Not necessarily. Option 2 on the form lets you connect to the new system for indoor water while keeping your well active for outdoor irrigation.
Is there one final deadline for the whole project? No. Phase 3 construction is being built and designed in segments, and each segment carries its own opt-in window tied to when the pipeline physically reaches that road. Phase 2, which covers the Tesuque area, is projected to finish by 2029, but individual road-level deadlines will likely arrive well before then.
What if I never want to connect to the system at all? You can select Option 3 on the form to decline connection entirely. Filing the form itself, regardless of which option you choose, is what provides legal protection against future priority water calls under the settlement.
Water infrastructure decisions like this one rarely show up in a listing description, but they can shape what a property costs to own and how it is protected during the next drought. If you are weighing a purchase or a sale along this corridor and want a second set of eyes on what has and has not been filed, Ayden Gramm Real Estate is glad to help you sort through it. Schedule a Consultation to start that conversation.
