Arizona AG sues Saudi firm over ‘excessive’ groundwater pumping, saying it’s a public nuisance
PHOENIX — Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes announced Wednesday that she is filing charges Saudi Arabian agricultural industry for allegedly violating a public nuisance law, alleging that groundwater pumping threatens the public health, safety and infrastructure of local communities in a rural western district.
The complaint filed in Maricopa County Superior Court alleges pumping at a Fondomonte Arizona, LLC. The alfalfa farm has had widespread impacts in the Ranegras Plains Basin of La Paz Province, harming all those who rely on the basin’s water by removing supplies, drying up wells, and causing the cracks and sinking of the land in some areas.
The lawsuit is Arizona’s latest action against foreign companies that use vast amounts of groundwater to grow thirsty forage crops for export because of climate challenges in other countries. Rural Arizona is especially attractive to international companies because it has no regulations on groundwater pumping.
The lawsuit alleges that Fondomonte has extracted massive amounts since 2014 that have accelerated the depletion of the basin’s aquifer.
The Associated Press called and emailed Fondomonte Arizona, a subsidiary of Saudi Dairy giant Almarai Co., seeking comment on the lawsuit Wednesday. The lawyers have previously said the company has legally leased and purchased land in the U.S. and spent millions on infrastructure improvements.
Years of drought have increased pressure on water users across the West, especially in states like Arizona, which rely heavily on the dwindling Colorado River. The drought has made groundwater – long used without restrictions by farmers and rural residents – even more important to users across the state.
Mayes’ lawsuit alleges that Fondomonte’s actions constitute a public nuisance under a state statute that prohibits activities that injure health, interfere with the use of property or interfere with a community’s comfortable enjoyment of life or property.
Mayes called the company’s pumping of groundwater “unsustainable” and said it was having “devastating consequences” for people in the area.
“Arizona law is clear: no company has the right to jeopardize the health and safety of an entire community for its own benefit,” she said.
The lawsuit seeks to ban the company from further pumping of groundwater, which it says is “excessive,” and demands that an abatement fund be set up.
Arizona officials have been attacking Fondomonte for more than a year over its use of groundwater to grow feed crops, failing to renew or canceling the company’s leases. Butler Valley in western Arizona. Some residents there had complained that the company’s pumping operations threatened their wells.