By Priya Sundareshan, as previously published on azcentral.com. Opinion: Wells are going dry in rural Arizona. Out-of-state businesses are exploiting our water. Yet Republican lawmakers refuse to lift a finger. That must change.
Gov. Katie Hobbs this month canceled a state land lease in Butler Valley to the Saudi-owned company Fondomonte and announced that our state will not renew three other leases to Fondomonte when they expire in February.
This is fantastic news for Arizonans, who have been outraged to learn, including from national news coverage, that Fondomonte pumps vast quantities of water from the aquifer to grow 3.500 acres of alfalfa, one of the thirstiest crops on the planet (cultivation is banned in Saudi Arabia for that reason).
The alfalfa grown here is exported to Saudi Arabia to feed cows. Ignoring staff recommendations, the Republican administration of former Gov. Doug Ducey excused Fondomonte from having to disclose how much water it pumps from the aquifer, according to the Washington Post.
Recently, the company was forced to reveal the numbers that were appalling: It’s pumping 16,450 acre-feet of water a year – enough to supply a city of 50,000 people.
The cost to the company? A bargain is $25 an acre to lease the land.
Arizona has real water problems.
The real problem is that our laws have left us open to any company to exploit our water. Why did we put up with this?
Before Gov. Hobbs took office and followed through with greater transparency and action, most citizens needed to know about sweetheart deals like Fondomonte’s and how lax the state has been in regulating water.
In southern Arizona, a large Minnesota dairy took advantage of our lax rural regulations and moved in with 70,000 head of cattle. Since Riverview arrived, there has been a dramatic drop in the water tables. Residents’ wells are drying up.
After sweltering through triple-digit temperatures this past summer, municipal residents are also worried about long-term water supply.
Lakes Powell and Mead remain at low levels and our state has pitched in to reduce our share of water from the shrinking Colorado River. The 20-year drought will only worsen with climate change.
Republicans still refuse to act
What are your legislators doing about these cataclysmic events, which touch every resident’s life?
Not much.
Other Democrats in the Legislature and I consider groundwater a vital public resource that is rapidly vanishing. But my Republican colleagues see water in terms of property rights.
If you buy or lease land in Arizona, you get all the water you can pump for free.
The good news is that soon after taking office in January, Gov. Hobbs appointed a bipartisan Water Policy Council charged with modernizing the Arizona Groundwater Management Act. This 40-year-old law regulates groundwater pumping in five urban areas but bypasses rural areas. As a new legislator and environmental attorney, I am pleased to be a council member.
Now for the not-so-good news.
The Republican leadership of the House and Senate Natural Resources committees is a significant obstacle to progress on water management.
The only fix: Flip the House and Senate
Bills requiring measuring and reporting water pumped have yet to go anywhere, and neither has a bill I sponsored that would require a fee for groundwater pumped from state land. Even Republican bills to create local stewardship of rural groundwater have not been heard.
And just last week, the chair of the Senate Natural Resources Committee and the Arizona Farm Bureau representative withdrew their participation in the governor’s council, making our chances of passing legislation more difficult in the near term.
In water-starved rural Arizona, where water is unmetered and free for all, we aren’t protecting residents whose wells dry up when the next big industry moves in?
Requiring groundwater pumping data and reporting for our scarce resources seems like a no-brainer. Still, extreme Republican leaders support corporate greed over residents’ needs and quash attempts at sensible water management.
So, even though Gov. Hobbs is working with her council to find consensus we may still struggle to see any substantive legislation pass.
Our only hope is to flip both houses to Democratic control.
It’s shameful that legislative leaders have allowed rural wells to run dry while out-of-state businesses prosper. How much thirstier do Arizonans have to get before we act?
Priya Sundareshan is a state senator representing Legislative District 18, an environmental advocate and co-chair of the Arizona Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee. Reach her at priyaqarizona@gmail.com; on X, formerly Twitter: @priyazaz.