A monthly members-only column by Alan Dulaney
There is an old folk saying about actions that are too late: ‘Closing the barn door after the horse has bolted.’ Litigation filed by the Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes two years ago, still ongoing, may fit this description.
Fondomonte is a company owned by people in Saudi Arabia who wanted hay for their dairy cattle and horses. The company leased land in the Ranegras Plain in La Paz County from the Arizona State Land Department (ASLD) some years ago, and began growing alfalfa, lots of alfalfa. Alfalfa needs irrigation water, lots of water. So Fondomonte constructed several large wells to provide the substantial volumes of irrigation water to grow their crops, which apparently were destined to be shipped to Saudi Arabia.
The Ranegras Plain is rural, and most people appear to have wells, both for domestic purposes and to irrigate their own crops. Over-pumping of existing irrigation wells has been a problem for years. After a period of time, the existing population began to notice that water levels in their wells were dropping. Some wells went dry. Seeking help, they contacted state government, undoubtedly starting with the Arizona Department of Water Resources (ADWR). Unfortunately for them, Fondomonte had selected La Paz County because it was free of regulatory constraints concerning wells. It was not in an Active Management Area (AMA) at that time, they weren’t impacting any surface waters, and they could drill wells as deep as they wanted, wherever they wanted, and pump whatever volumes of groundwater they wanted.
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