(Disclosure: Rose Law Group represents Fondomonte)
By Arizona Capitol Times
A Superior Court judge is weighing whether greater regulation in La Paz County undermines or intensifies the state’s legal claim over whether Fondomonte Arizona, a Saudi-owned alfalfa farm, is illegally pumping excessive groundwater.
Yet while Attorney General Kris Mayes pursues Fondomonte on public nuisance charges, the Arizona Department of Water Resources implemented a new active management area for groundwater in the Ranegras Plain Basin.
Now, ADWR is tasked with assessing current groundwater use, exempting existing users, blocking new irrigation and implementing water reporting and management plans to protect an area’s water supply — all of which could impact a decision on whether Fondomonte’s agricultural operations constitute a public nuisance.
Briana Campbell, Rose Law Group litigator & attorney for Fondomonte: “The Legislature created ADWR to assess basin-wide groundwater conditions to determine the causes of decline and subsidence, and to impose mandates tailored to those findings… Now that the ADWR has taken charge of the groundwater issues in the Basin, the Court should stay this lawsuit and let the agency do its work.”
