Arizona Governor To Terminate Saudi Water Pumping Lease [View all]

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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.

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