PHOENIX (CN) - An alfalfa-growing megafarm can't halt a public nuisance lawsuit accusing it of excessive groundwater pumping in the southwest corner of Arizona, plagued with fissures and land subsidence, a state judge ruled Friday.
Fondomonte Arizona LLC, which accounts for more than 80% of groundwater pumping in the 912-square-mile Renagras Plain Basin, asked Maricopa County Judge Scott Minder to pause a 2024 lawsuit filed by Attorney General Kris Mayes so the Arizona Department of Water Resources could first implement its own restrictions.
The department designated the basin an active management area in January and has begun a two-year process aimed at cutting groundwater pumping by 50% over 50 years. Fondomonte argued in March that court-ordered limits could conflict with the department's findings.
In a five page order, Minder disagreed.
"The Court finds a minimal chance of inconsistency given the practicalities here," Minder wrote. "Litigation can be a lengthy process. Given the expected level of expert work and assessment, a Court order prior to the formal management plan seems unlikely."
Minder said he is not convinced the active management regulations will provide the relief the state seeks. While active management areas generally restrict new groundwater pumping, existing users are often allowed to continue under irrigation grandfathered rights. Those users typically must monitor and limit water use, but not necessarily reduce it.
"While the studies may include historical analyses, the court questions whether those assessments will apply only to Fondomonte or to water use in general, and whether the studies will adequately answer the question presented by this lawsuit - did (and does) Fondomonte use too much water," Minder wrote. After all, the ADWR's proposed goal, as this Court is informed, is to reduce the overdraft by half, which this court takes to imply that excess groundwater extraction may continue despite the management."
Conversely, Minder would have the authority to declare Fondomonte's current water use illegal, going further than active management area laws could.
The state also requests that Fondomonte be ordered to establish an abatement fund to reduce its footprint in the basin. Because this relief falls outside the authority of the water resources department, Minder said a complete stay would be inappropriate.
"I am grateful for today's ruling, which keeps our lawsuit against Fondomonte on track," Mayes, a Democrat, said in a Friday press release. "My office will keep fighting to protect the people of La Paz County and hold Fondomonte accountable for the public nuisance we allege they have created due to their overuse of groundwater."
In the lawsuit, Mayes says the alfalfa growing operation greatly increased groundwater pumping in the basin after 2014, drying up nearby wells, degrading water quality and contributing to land subsidence in the surrounding community.
Fondomonte and the basin are the latest focus of Arizona's efforts to curb groundwater overpumping in the desert. In January, Mayes reached a settlement with Riverview Dairy, a factory farm similarly blamed for overpumping in Cochise County.
Fondomonte didn't reply to a request for comment.
Minder said some of Fondomonte's arguments have merit, and ordered the parties to develop a new briefing schedule around the two-year hydrologic study so that the parties can consider the department's findings in future litigation.
"The court questions whether or to what extent the ADWR's analysis will resolve allegations of, and responsibility for, past overuse," Minder wrote. "But all, including this court, will likely benefit from the ADWR's studies and conclusions, many of them complex in nature, that will underpin the director's basin management."
Source: Courthouse News Service
