PHOENIX — Attorney General Chris Mays has accused the Department of Water Resources of failing to do its job of protecting the state’s groundwater supply.
In a letter to Tom Busschacke published Friday, Mays said the government agency he led has implemented a new “active management policy” since 1980, in which legal limits have been placed on the withdrawal and use of groundwater. It said it was legally required to determine the “zone”.
“This legal requirement recognizes that groundwater conditions in a given area are dynamic and that groundwater management should be adapted to those changing conditions,” she wrote. rice field. “Unfortunately, although the groundwater situation has changed significantly since 1980, ADWR does not appear to be working on analysis of potential new AMAs to adapt to those changes.”
Mays acknowledged that agencies have surveyed the Upper San Pedro Basin twice to see if restrictions were necessary.
“But two studies on a single basis in 40 years have failed to meet the legal mandate,” she told Buschatke.
Mays encouraged him to tell her about other research done to comply with the law.
“If you believe ADWR failed to comply with the legal requirements, please tell us why ADWR failed to comply,” she said.
Neither Buschatke nor Gov. Katie Hobbs, who agreed to keep him as water commissioner after taking office in January from Doug Ducey, declined to comment.
The move comes as Mays split from Governor Katie Hobbs, at least in part, over a state land lease to Saudi company Fondmonte, which pumps groundwater to grow alfalfa on its property for cattle feed. It was done in the midst of a dispute. That’s all because Saudi law bans the cultivation of alfalfa, which is believed to be too water-demanding for the desert.
Mays campaigned last year with a promise to terminate the lease, along with the right to pump groundwater from the La Paz County property outside of its valid administrative zone. But Hobbes, who took over his tenancy when he also took office in January, said that was legally impossible.
“This is a very complex issue and frankly, it’s not something state governments have the power to handle alone,” the governor told reporters in late January. “This is a complicated lease and we cannot just end it.”
Mays said he believes the use of state-rented farmland and the pumping of groundwater is illegal.
Mr. Hobbes didn’t go that far, urging lawmakers to address the issue in a January address to the State of the Union, saying the leases were the result of “water-poaching loopholes.”
“Our groundwater should be used to support Arizonans, not foreign business interests,” she said.
In the meantime, however, Mays has continued to exert political pressure, including conducting at least one interview with CBS News near Fondmonte’s compound, and has sent the station’s reporter and videographer to a state-owned plane to investigate the scene. I got on. The interview was broadcast on Thursday.
In a prepared statement, Mays said it was his first state visit to the region as attorney general.
“I felt like I needed to get out into the Butler Valley and see for myself what’s going on in the State Trust,” she said. The Attorney General said it was “a scandal and a matter of vital public concern” that a private company could pump unrestricted groundwater from the area.
“It’s been a long-standing practice for elected officials to accompany reporters on trips like this,” Mays said of the use of state-owned aircraft.
“And I will continue to do so to protect public transparency,” she said.
As the dispute with Hobbes simmered, Ms Mays said she had won something of a victory. She said she had the state land agency, also under the governor’s jurisdiction, withdraw a request for ADWR to allow the drilling of two new high-capacity wells in Fondomonte.
He blamed the Bouschatke provincial authorities for issuing the permit in the first place last August, given that other wells in the area have dried up and land subsidence is occurring in La Paz county. And in a separate letter to Mr. Buschatke, also released Friday, the attorney general issued some sort of warning to him.
“(Italian) At least, (Roman) I believe ADWR should scrutinize the new application for wells by Fondmonte very closely, given this information,” she wrote. “My office will be monitoring the ADWR well permit portal going forward.”
In his correspondence with Buschatke, Mays not only criticizes his agency’s inability to determine whether additional areas in the state require active managed-area protection.
He said hedge funds and “perhaps other financial firms and speculators” are beginning to buy land near the Colorado River and water rights attached to the properties. More importantly, these owners “can be expected to seek to transfer their water rights offshore,” Mays said.
And the Attorney General said the Department of Water Resources has not done what it believes is necessary to crack down on the issue.
Mays cited the agency’s recommendation to the Department of the Interior in September 2020 to approve the transfer of farms owned in the Cibola Valley along the Colorado River in La Paz County to Queen Creek.
On the same day, ADWR implemented new policies to manage future water supply, she said.
He said state law gives ADWR a “overall duty” to develop plans and develop programs for water development, management, conservation and use, including control over water quantity and quality. said there is.
“However, when ADWR approved the transfer to Queen Creek, it appeared to consider the transfer in isolation, ignoring the cumulative impact that other anticipated transfers could have. ,” Mays told Buschatke.
She said he told the meeting that the new policy would allow his agency to consider the cumulative impact of water transfers. But Mays said he didn’t see any policy that would actually require ADWR to actually do it.
“We will revise[the policy]to require consideration of foreseeable cumulative impacts and carefully scrutinize future water transfer requests to ensure that the recommended approvals are consistent with the overarching mandate of the ADWR. I urge you to do so,” she wrote.
