Arizona to prosecute Saudi company over water use

Alamy

• Lawsuit to halt pumping
• Food security issues
• Farms grow alfalfa

The attorney general of the US state of Arizona is set to launch legal proceeding in the next two weeks against the Saudi dairy company Almarai over groundwater pumping on two farms in the state.

Fondomonte, an Almarai subsidiary, grows alfalfa for animal feed on 6,000 acres in Butler Valley, La Paz County, Arizona, which is shipped to Saudi Arabia to feed dairy cattle.

Laws in the state allow virtually unfettered groundwater pumping in rural areas, and Fondomonte is not breaking any laws.

However, in March this year, Arizona’s governor, Katie Hobbs, said four leases held by Fondomonte in the Butler Valley had been allowed to expire. She promised to “protect Arizona’s water security”, and said she plans to use a local law that makes it illegal for one property owner to create a nuisance that affects others, local media reported.

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The state’s prosecutor, Kris Mayes, speaking to local media on Tuesday, said she would be filing a lawsuit “in the next two weeks’’ to halt groundwater pumping.

Mayes said local hydrologists are completing an analysis of the water systems to prove her case. 

She has also raised concerns about Fondomonte obtaining approval from the Arizona Department of Water Resources to drill a new well on its alfalfa farm in Vicksburg, La Paz.

Arizona rents out parcels of its vast amounts of state-owned land to private companies, and those leases in turn generate a profit for the State Land Trust. 

Fondomonte bought and leased thousands of acres in Arizona and California in 2014, as did other Gulf states, who invested heavily in overseas operations to cover their food security issues.