- State alleges water overuse threatens public safety.
- Company pumped enough water in 2023 for 93,000 homes.
- Arizona seeks to halt pumping and repair community damage.
December 13, 2024 — Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes filed a lawsuit on Wednesday, December 11, against Fondomonte Arizona, LLC, accusing the company of depleting groundwater resources in La Paz County to grow crops for export to Saudi Arabia. The state claims this excessive pumping has harmed the Ranegras Plain Basin, putting public health, infrastructure, and local agriculture at risk. (Link to the complaint
.)
La Paz County, located in western Arizona along the Colorado River, is a largely rural region with about 16,000 residents. The county’s economy depends heavily on agriculture and tourism, with groundwater serving as a lifeline for farmers, small communities, and local ecosystems. However, the area has faced increasing strain on its water resources, exacerbated by the ongoing drought in the Colorado River Basin.
According to the lawsuit, Fondomonte has extracted vast amounts of water from the aquifer since 2014, including approximately 31,196 acre-feet in 2023 alone—enough to supply nearly 93,600 homes for a year. This pumping has reportedly led to declining groundwater levels and land subsidence, damaging the region’s fragile infrastructure and threatening its future sustainability.
“Fondomonte’s unsustainable groundwater pumping has caused devastating consequences for the Ranegras Plain Basin, putting the health and future of the residents of La Paz County at risk,” said Mayes in a statement. “Arizona law is clear: no company has the right to endanger an entire community’s health and safety for its own gain.”
Water for Export Raises Controversy.
Fondomonte, a subsidiary of a Saudi Arabian company, uses the groundwater to grow water-intensive alfalfa, which is shipped overseas to feed livestock in Saudi Arabia. Critics have long pointed to this practice as an example of mismanaged water policy in a state grappling with chronic water shortages.
The lawsuit seeks a court order declaring Fondomonte’s activities a public nuisance, stopping further excessive groundwater pumping, and requiring the company to establish an abatement fund to address the harm caused by its practices.
Lawsuit a Long Shot.
The public nuisance approach in the lawsuit is a rarely tested legal theory. Rhett Larson, a professor of water law at Arizona State University, said, “You have rarely seen successful public nuisance claims against agricultural practices. You have to show that they were pretty dangerous.” Larson says state laws were written to protect agricultural interests (see the 12 News video below).
A Broader Water Crisis.
The case highlights the growing tension over water rights and usage in Arizona, particularly in rural areas like La Paz County. Groundwater, a critical resource for sustaining agriculture and communities in the state, is largely unregulated outside designated Active Management Areas. As the Colorado River Basin faces historic drought conditions, groundwater management becomes more contentious.
This lawsuit addresses what Mayes describes as a corporate overreach that threatens the livelihoods of Arizona residents and the future of its rural communities.
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Image:
Entering Arizona from California on Interstate 10
, eastbound, March 2005, by Brandy Jenkins. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
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