A United Arab Emirates company is leasing land in rural Arizona so it can pump unlimited amounts of the state's groundwater for free.
If this sounds familiar, it should be. State officials are grappling with international companies taking advantage of Arizona's lax water laws. almost 10 years. While the impacts on the state's water resources will be long-lasting, McMullen Basin residents are experiencing first-hand the devastating effects of corporate groundwater drilling.
inferiority
McMullen Valley is located at the intersection of La Paz, Maricopa, and Yavapai counties and includes the communities of Aguila, Salome, and Wenden, with fewer than 3,000 residents.
La Paz County Supervisor Holly Irwin said the families moving to McMullen Valley are mostly farmers and retirees who plan to spend the rest of their lives there. But they all share one problem that makes life in the Valley increasingly difficult as the years go by.
they are sinking.
“The Emirates is an agricultural industry and they pumped so much water out of the ground that the entire town of Wenden sank four feet,” Arizona Attorney General Chris Mays told the Copper Courier. “It's amazing, but it's scary for the people of Wenden.”
Governor Mays has worked with Governor Katie Hobbs to halt numerous drilling permits for international corporate farms, but so much water is being taken from the land that the ground is caving in and buildings are being destroyed. There are cracks in the foundation, and one of the largest excavation permits in the state, he said. Valuable natural resources are being depleted at an alarming rate.
“We're hearing reports of houses cracking due to subsidence caused by extreme industrial agriculture, and that's not okay,” Mays said. “We're in the middle of a drought. We're in the middle of a crisis and we can't use groundwater like that.”
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How do cities sink underground?
The region is experiencing what Mays and Irwin refer to as subsidence, a human-induced result of groundwater pumping. It occurs when water consisting of fine-grained sediments is extracted from the earth. according to to the U.S. Department of the Interior. This can occur in small, concentrated areas, such as sinkholes, or spread over large areas, as in the case of McMullen Valley.
In the McMullen Valley, land subsidence caused topsoil to sink by three feet over a 25-year period from 1991 to 2016, the report said. data from Arizona Department of Water Resources (ADWR). Irwin first sounded the alarm about land subsidence in 2010, after the city of Phoenix collapsed. released This report highlights the long-term problems that continued water extraction can cause.
“When these problems started happening in 2010, I reached out to the ADWR director who used to work for the city of Phoenix,” Irwin said. “That's when I requested the latest hydrology studies, and in a few weeks he said 2024 is coming up and the latest hydrology studies are still not available.”
Both Irwin and Mays believe that corporate drilling will only make the problem worse, and so far they're right.no hydrology A study has been commissioned to determine how much water remains, and McMullen Valley has sunk an additional 12 inches since corporate farms moved into the area in 2015.
“I really don’t understand why we continue to kick this can down the road,” Irwin said. “If we continue down this path, we're going to see more wells go dry and water quality deteriorate.”
what is being done
In October, Gov. Katie Hobbs' administration set an end date for Fondo Monte, a Saudi company in La Paz County that had used up millions of gallons of water growing alfalfa.
But another UAE-based company, Al Dara, operates in essentially the same way as Fondomonte, with no end in sight.
The actions taken by the Hobbs administration to stop Fondomonte from using Arizona's groundwater apply only to that situation and do not affect how other companies can operate.
Companies like Fondomonte and Al Dara have the money to buy bigger drills for deeper wells, and that's exactly what they're doing. In 1957, only 107 feet of excavation was required to reach the waters of McMullen Valley. Currently, farmers and businesses must drill 542 feet before pumping groundwater.
And unless the state water board suspends drilling permits, the wells will only get deeper.
A representative for Fondomonte declined to comment for this story. Al Dahra did not respond to requests for comment.
The unincorporated community of Salome, Arizona, has sunk four feet deeper into McMullen Valley since 1991. Image from Shutterstock.
Review state water regulations
Mays, who worked with Hobbs to revoke Fondomonte's permit, believes the state needs a complete overhaul of its groundwater laws.
“We need a complete overhaul of our groundwater laws to create more AMAs (active management areas) in Arizona,” Mays said. The Legislature can do that, and frankly, I think the governor and the current Director of Water Management and Resources, Tom Buschatke, can do it right now. ”
Active management areas are parts of the state that have been designated as areas with very limited amounts of groundwater, and water levels and usage must be monitored and tightly regulated to ensure that the groundwater does not become depleted.
Arizona is more than just a desert; it has deserts, mountains, and plateaus, and the entire state is monitored in this way, with the exception of three major cities: Phoenix, Prescott, and Tucson, and two desert counties, Pinal and Santa Cruz. Not that there are. There are no regulations on how water is extracted from the ground. This means you don't know how much water is being used and, more importantly, how much water is left.
Proposing local solutions
Irwin has proposed something similar and is currently working with a coalition of supervisors from Mojave, Yavapai and Coconino counties to develop so-called local groundwater management areas. The group hopes to receive funding to conduct hydrological studies, regulate water extraction, and provide administrative and technical support to water conservation efforts in each county.
Governor's Water Policy Council Republican Rep. Gail Griffin, chair of the Natural Resources, Energy and Water Committee, recommended that Congress provide funding for the group to operate effectively. left The board deliberated over disagreements regarding groundwater regulations.
Introducing Republican Senators law Although the plan was to formally establish a local groundwater management district earlier this year, Griffin never introduced the bill to the committee.
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enforcement activities
Instead of legislative action, Mays proposed another solution: suspending drilling through executive authority.
“[ADWR Director] Tom Buschatke could work with the governor to put a moratorium on new deepwater well construction right now. I wish that were the case,” Mays said. “I think there are a lot of things that the current ADWR can do that we haven’t done.”
Buschatzke and ADWR did not respond to requests for comment on this story.
However, it is unlikely that ADWR Director Tom Buschatske will suspend drilling. He was appointed by former Gov. Doug Ducey and is one of the few directors Hobbs retained when he became governor.
Buschatke was the one who approved Fondomonte's first drilling permit in 2015 and defended his decision when questioned. saying “They have the same rights as any other individual in Arizona to cultivate, cultivate, sell and export crops.”
But without regulations on water withdrawals, those who can dig the deepest will reach the water first and can take as much as they want.
Hay bales are stored in a shelter at Al Darla Farms in McMullen Valley, Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2023, in Wenden, Arizona. Concerns are growing in rural western Arizona about future water supplies from ancient aquifers. Some neighbors have complained that their backyard wells have gone dry since an Emirati agricultural company started growing alfalfa nearby. AP Photo/John Locher
