Mayes plans to continue suit vs. Fondomonte for groundwater pumping, despite new protections

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes says she’ll continue her lawsuit against Saudi Arabian megafarm Fondomonte, despite new actions to restrict groundwater pumping in the area.

Mayes is suing Fondomonte under Arizona’s public nuisance statute. She argues the company’s groundwater pumping has harmed the surrounding community in La Paz County.

The state Department of Water Resources recently established new groundwater protections in the Ranegras Plain Basin, where Fondomonte operates, putting the basin in an “active management area,” but Mayes argues her case is still necessary.

"Public nuisance and active management areas are complementary," Mayes said in a statement.

ADWR’s protections, according to a briefing filed by Mayes on Monday, will only take “incremental, long-term remedial action” in the basin, and don’t do enough to address Fondomonte specifically. She also noted that active management area protections won’t go into effect for a long time.

In the briefing, Mayes accused Fondomonte of trying to use ADWR’s action to “avoid any responsibility for its conduct” by wiggling out of the case she brought more than a year ago.

Apart from ADWR’s actions not preempting Mayes’ lawsuit, she argued that the verdict in the case will actually play a role in how ADWR addresses Fondomonte in the active management area process.

Entities who are determined to be legal groundwater users at the time the active management area is established are awarded “grandfathered” water rights. That means they have a right to pump groundwater based on their usage before the protections took effect.

So, in Fondomonte’s case, Mayes said if the lawsuit finds the company’s actions to be illegal, the ruling could make Fondomonte ineligible for those grandfathered rights.