By Kiera Riley | Arizona Capitol Times
A legal fight over whether groundwater pumping by Fondomonte Arizona, a Saudi-backed agriculture company, constitutes a public nuisance now centers around whether the Arizona attorney general has the right to sue in the first place.
The question has yet to be answered by a Superior Court judge, but Fondomonte’s claim that Attorney General Kris Mayes has overstepped her authority and encroached on the responsibilities designated to the Arizona Department of Water Resources under state law raises a point of reflection on the routes for policy changes and the place for litigation.
“Lawsuits are cumbersome, and they don’t necessarily achieve the kind of sophisticated results that people would like,” Kathleen Ferris, former ADWR director and senior research fellow at the Kyl Center for Water Policy said. “But again, if you can’t get anything done any other way, then people are tempted to go to court.”
