The Buzz: The battle for water in rural Arizona continues

On September 12, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes sent a letter to the Arizona Department of Water Resources questioning the approval of Saudi-backed alfalfa farm Fondomonte's paperwork to drill a new well on its property in La Paz County.

“This is an area that we are already investigating for over-pumping by the Saudis, and it is also an area that is home to a previously used ammunition site. State law already requires the director of the [Arizona] The Department of Water Resources should not approve this well, at least not without additional studies and a clear and conclusive determination that the site will not expand into other areas and result in additional contamination of the water supply,” Mayes told AZPM.

In the letter, Mayes also expressed her belief that swift action is needed from Governor Katie Hobbs. Hobbs said she would only take action if the legislature failed to amend the rural water law.

Hobbs' spokesperson Christian Slater sent AZPM a statement on the letter, which reads in part: “The only elected official who has taken action to hold Fondomonte accountable is Governor Hobbs, not the Attorney General. That's because the Governor is interested in real action to secure our water supply, not empty posturing. Currently, Governor Hobbs' actions to hold Fondomonte accountable are the subject of an administrative dispute, in part due to reckless statements like the one the Attorney General made. And if the Attorney General ever follows the Governor's lead and takes action to hold Fondomonte accountable, her statements could similarly sabotage those actions.”

The report then goes on to quote from a court document from Fondomonte that references previous statements made by Mayes about the company.

Mayes said their water use problems in rural Arizona extend beyond Fondomonte to include nearly 13,000 acres of nearby farmland that was purchased in early July by Water Asset Management, a private equity fund. The company already owns land elsewhere in Western Arizona.

“$100 million just went to a Wall Street hedge fund that is also buying up water rights in the Harquahala Valley and Mohave County. This is starting to look like a potential antitrust issue to me, and so we're starting to look at these water purchases by these companies from an antitrust perspective. We'll say more about that later, but it's a big issue.”

Mayes also criticized Riverview LLP, a Minnesota-based dairy company that owns land in Cochise County. Residents say the company is drying up its aquifer to the point where it will be difficult for residents to continue to access it.

“In our community, a woman testified that she was driving near Willcox one night and had to slam on her brakes because she was about to drive into one of the cracks that had opened up on one of the county roads near the Riverview Dairy. That's crazy. That's absolutely crazy, but it's the reality for a lot of people in Cochise County. Why? Because the government failed them,” she said.

Although groundwater problems in rural areas have been a topic of discussion for politicians and the media recently, they are nothing new. Nate Halverson, a reporter and producer at the Center for Investigative Reporting, broke the news about the Saudi farm in Arizona back in 2015.

“When I started looking into this, I wasn't interested in where foreign companies were setting up in the U.S. I wanted to find out which countries had massive water problems, and Saudi Arabia was one of those countries, right? A lot of people don't know this, but in the 1990s, Saudi Arabia was actually the sixth-largest wheat exporter in the world, pumping out its aquifers to grow wheat and ship it all over the world. But that didn't last long, and they basically ran out of water. And then King said the companies had to spread out all over the world and find other places with water,” he said.

Halverson said his reporting was initially met with skepticism, but he believes it has sounded increasingly credible in recent years.

“[Tom] Buschatzke, the head of the [Arizona’s] The water authority said we were going to 'harvest this year.' That this was basically a non-story and that there was enough water in La Paz County for the next 100 years. And I think what you're seeing now is the Arizona Attorney General and others saying we need to look at how much water there is because we saw that in Saudi Arabia and that's why I came to Arizona because we saw that in other places.”

Halverson's reporting continues to track private and foreign investments in agriculture and water rights around the world. Those efforts have been turned into a documentary called “The Grab,” available now and available to stream on Hulu starting October 10.

“We're seeing a lot more corporate interest, a lot more private equity, a lot more big money. And so I've come across white papers from investment banks saying that farmers are getting older. They're getting closer to retirement age and their kids don't necessarily want to stay on the farm. And so there are these opportunities to convert farmers into larger and larger operations. And so you see all across the U.S. the size of farms is getting larger and larger, and in part that's a reflection of that corporate interest in larger and larger farms.”

And, Halverson said, governments tried to secure their own food chains so that food price shocks did not lead to government destabilization and revolutions like the Arab Spring in the early 2010s.

“These countries were buying food on the open market. And when food prices shot up, they suddenly had to tap into their reserves or fight with other countries, and that can be very destabilizing politically. They don't want to have to tell their people, 'Hey guys, you can't eat that much this month.'”

For more information about water, check out our water podcast “Tapped.”

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