Arizona Governor To Terminate Saudi Water Pumping Lease

[riversedge]

Source: crooksandliars.com




The Saudi company has been mining water at the site since 2015.

By Susie Madrak — October 3, 2023

Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs said yesterday that her administration would effectively kick a Saudi-owned alfalfa farm off a critical stretch of state land, a move over the deepening dilemmas over water scarcity as climate change dries out the West. Via the Washington Post:

The move will prevent the Saudi-owned company, Fondomonte Arizona, from pumping groundwater that could one day serve as backup for booming urban areas. Currently, the company uses the water to grow alfalfa to feed the kingdom’s dairy cows.

Fondomonte came under fierce bipartisan criticism on the campaign trail last year, and Hobbs, a Democrat who took office in January, has been under pressure to act. In a statement, she said the state land department had terminated one lease held by the company and decided not to renew three other leases when they expire in February. The leases cover about 3,500 acres of desert terrain west of Phoenix, in an area called the Butler Valley.

A Washington Post investigation in July found that state land planners have been raising alarms about Fondomonte’s presence in the Butler Valley since its arrival in 2015 under then-Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican. At the time, planners warned that the water there might one day have a better use, and that the state was not charging sufficiently for access to the land, given the value of the dwindling natural resource underneath it. Experts within the state land department also raised concerns in subsequent years about upgrades and other changes made by Fondomonte to the land, according to emails released in response to a public records request....................................................................

Read more: https://crooksandliars.com/2023/10/arizona-governor-terminate-saudi-water

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Way past time to do this.

Link to tweet

?s=20

[hibbing]

1. water there might one day have a better use

You mean growing feed for a bunch of ultra wealthy authoritarian's dairy cows isn't a great thing for everyone?

Peace

[LiberalArkie]

3. The Saudis need to use their abundant water in their own country, or pay a fair price

of 1$ per gallon pumped

[Seinan Sensei]

7. I vote that ( at the very least ) if they want water ...

... then we index the price-per-gallon of water to price-per-gallon of premium gasoline.

[LiberalArkie]

8. But gasoline is cheaper than bottled water

[oldsoftie]

13. Not anymore. Where's a bottle of water 4$? A concert or the airport.

[Elessar Zappa]

17. Don't forget amusement parks!

[LiberalArkie]

26. 1 gallon 128 ounces

A normal bottle of water is 16.9 ounces
1 gallon - 7.57 bottles

[oldsoftie]

27. So our dumbasses are paying 30 bucks for water!

[LiberalArkie]

29. We just stupid, paying a fuck load of money for bottled water that can not be recycled and just

pollutes the earth and ocean and bitch and gripe about the price of gasoline. And most of the locales just give the water to Nestle and others to bottle and sell to us.

I just do not think that the Earth can last as long as the U S of A is still around.

[Pantagruel]

2. Memo to Saudi's

Make your own water, invest in the tech.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/9/30/2196209/-Ingenious-solar-distiller-makes-fresh-water-from-seawater-for-less-than-1-a-gallon

[cstanleytech]

24. They arent the only ones that need to invest in that as California really needs to get off

their butts and move to solve theirs.

[asiliveandbreathe]

4. Been watching and waiting for this action by our great new politicians Gov. (No-debate lake ) Hobbs

(Meant in a good way), and AG Mayes..a huge deal...now on to Save our Schools from voucher crap..and prevent a massive hole in AZ budget....Ducey sure as shit took the money from all corners and ran..imagine, charter schools w/o accountability..but I digress..

[Bayard]

5. Saudi's will have to pay $20+ a bale for alfalfa

Like everybody else. I question why they're feeding it to dairy cattle anyway.

[liberalla]

6. W O W !!! Thank you Governor Hobbs!!!

Yes! Yes! Yes!!!

[onetexan]

19. Ditto!!👏😎

[Snackshack]

9. If the Southwest states ever really want to get serious about this...

..at some point we will not have a choice in the matter but why wait till then...but we are human. We are not proactive about life if it interrupts our daily desires.

Moved out of Az a few years ago. When I drove over the Hoover Dam, I cried inside. I had never seen the water intake foundations. Water was always up to the spill point almost and those intakes are over 100' tall. The "bath tub" ring at the shore was at a least 150-200'.

Real seriousness on conserving water in the SW would also mean no grass yards, no manicure landscapes with a fountain in front of every business center, nothing bigger then 3-4 deep play pools if pools allowed at all, not the deep diving pools, no golf course, no carwashes. Seeing a broken sprinkler just gushing out water in front of some ones home onto the street is a usual sighting in the Valley of the Sun.

When I was in LA we had no car wash days but those were nothing more than a feel good measure.

Fresh water is a finite resource and we are running out of it in 1000's upon 1000's of wasteful ways. Sure a good %'age of the water soaks back down to the water table and gets reused but not 100% eventually as weather patterns change and the winter snow pack becomes less and less the water will disappear.

There are some who think this is no big deal. Weather always a changes and we will deal with it. However we have no clue what the full impact will be. Earth has a 26,000 year Precession. We have no idea how a full rotation really plays out on this planet. Our documented history does not go back that far. Due to the 23 degree tilt of the planet that Precession has a huge impact on Weather. It is thought this has been the cause of the continuous advance and recession of the planets ice ages. Other seem to think we will be able to remove all the salt we need from Ocean water and make all the fresh water need. This will not work like that not at current population levels and certainly will not sustain these levels.

We have seen wars fought over security, money, oil. none of these are a must have like water. That would be a very different war.

[Duppers]

11. TY for posting this!

[Wonder Why]

14. NM took charge of their water years ago. All water wells (except small homeowner ones for personal

use) had to be approved by the State Engineer who was tasked with looking at the effect on the water table and on others already using it. El Paso, Tx wanted to build 12" pipes running from wells they would tap in Southern NMex to provide water because Texas allows owners to sell or not sell water rights with the land. Thus owners could hold onto the rights but sell the land and the new owners could not drill for water and then sell these rights to the highest bidder. Similarly, they could sell the water rights on land they continued to own while keeping mineral or oil rights or sell them separately.
El Paso sued NMex all the way to the Supreme Court over this rule when the State Engineer denied them the right to drill but lost.

[yonder]

16. +1. Good post.

[Kali]

23. um...

on pools - water evaporates from the surface. no difference in rate from deep or shallow pools. in fact shallow pools tend to be warmer and may evaporate faster. anyway, it is surface area that matters for evaporative waste not depth.

and for those interested, in AZ you can have up to 8 feet of evaporation in a year! I know it can be close to an inch per day on hot dry breezy days.

[Hekate]

10. KnR

[oldsoftie]

12. ITS ABOUT DAMN TIME. nt

[Owl]

20. YES!

[calimary]

21. This!!!

[diva77]

15. The "Reveal" podcast did an amazing job covering this problem - aired at end of July this yr

https://revealnews.org/podcast/the-great-arizona-water-grab/

And a big thank you to Gov. Hobbs for taking action!!!

[yonder]

18. I dont know what the contract obligations might be but excellent move by the guv.

[AllyCat]

22. Good! Why do they get the water?

[oldsoftie]

28. They've been using it to raise alfalfa; which isnt allowed in S.A.

because it USES TOO MUCH WATER
nd there's never been any laws against water usage in AZ

[LittleGirl]

25. Excellent!

Happy to see the governor I voted for do this! I’ve been following this story for a few years!