Fondomonte Arizona, a Saudi company, has depleted groundwater levels in La Paz County for years. It’s time someone stopped them.

I first heard about how a Saudi-owned farm company growing alfalfa to feed cows in the Middle East was draining aquifers in La Paz County back in 2015.

It was one of those that-can’t-be-right moments that not only turned out to be true, but had been going on for some time. And has continued.

In 2016, I spoke with La Paz County Supervisor Holly Irwin about the situation. She told me, “Once it’s gone, our water is gone. We want everyone to live here. We want the farmers to do what they do because they’re important to the local economy.

“We want the generations of families who have been here to continue to live here. But things have to change, or that can’t happen.”

Legislature could have stopped Fondomonte

After being elected in 2022, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes has promised to take up the fight and try to protect Arizona farms and homeowners in the county.

This week she filed a lawsuit against Fondomonte Arizona (the Saudi company) for creating a public nuisance by depleting groundwater levels that have caused the land to sink.

The lawsuit reads in part, “Fondomonte is taking advantage of Arizona’s failure to protect its precious groundwater resource. Despite this failure, Fondomonte is not permitted to cause a public nuisance.”

Opinion: Can Mayes stop Saudi cows eating Arizona’s water?

Saudi Arabia, like Arizona, has a limited supply of groundwater. The cows they raise are fed water-intensive alfalfa grown in western Arizona and shipped there.

They’ve done this by taking advantage of lax regulations that allowed Fondomonte to rent thousands of acres of land overseen by the Arizona State Land Department for a bargain basement price, sucking up as much water as they want.

The Republican-controlled Legislature could put a stop to this. But hasn’t done so.

Gov. Katie Hobbs has canceled or declined to renew several of the company’s leases.

‘No company has the right’ to drain our water

Mayes says the problem exists because of “legislative failure to address a water crisis with catastrophic effects on the groundwater level in the Ranegras Basin.”

She adds, “Fondomonte is taking advantage of Arizona’s failure to protect its precious groundwater resources.”

The company owns the land it farms in the Ranegras basin.

This isn’t something new.

A few years back in an essay for The New York Times, Natalie Koch, a professor in Syracuse University who will soon publish a book about Arizona’s water issues and our ties to Saudi Arabia, wrote, “Arizona is not the victim of evil outsiders; it’s the victim of its own hubris and political failings that allow such a system to exist.”

In a press release, Mayes said, “Arizona law is clear: no company has the right to endanger an entire community’s health and safety for its own gain.”

Then again, if nobody tries to stop them …

Reach Montini at ed.montini@arizonarepublic.com.

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