7 corporate farms draining aquifers
No one knows exactly how much groundwater these operations are taking
The last time Regina Cobb traveled east of the Kingman airport toward the Peacock Mountains, the area was mostly unspoiled desert where cattle grazed on the sparse Mojave Desert vegetation.
She had driven up the dusty rural road to store a bighorn sheep she killed on a hunt.
Returning to the area 10 months later, she was shocked that the high desert landscape of cresote and cholla was now a 850-acre pistachio farm where more than 125,000 saplings had been planted.
Along each row of waist-high saplings, long black irrigation tubes stretched out to connect the seemingly endless trees and nourish them with water.
“If you look straight down these rows it goes back as far as the eye can see,” Cobb said. “It boggles the mind how many trees are out here.”
Peacock Nuts, a consortium that includes the largest permanent crop nursery in the United States, has even bigger plans: 4,500 acres and as many as 650,000 pistachio trees.
“There’s no way we have enough water to be able to handle that,” Cobb said.
In Kingman, as in most of rural Arizona,
there are no rules on groundwater pumping. As long as you get a permit, you can drill a well of any size for any purpose as long as it’s for a beneficial use. Agriculture easily qualifies, even if the crops are shipped out of state for profit.
Peacock Nuts is one of seven corporate farms identified by The Arizona Republic as major agricultural groundwater users in Arizona. They include private-equity firms, investment funds focused on agriculture, and foreign food companies, mirroring the nationwide trend of big capital driving the ag industry and leading to larger farms.
There’s no cost for the groundwater other than the cost of drilling the well and the electricity to bring the water to the surface. That’s brought companies
from California, Las Vegas, Minnesota, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to rural areas throughout the state seeking to exploit Arizona’s underground resource.
Companies use Arizona’s groundwater to grow alfalfa, pistachios, pecans or other crops and then export some of the products to other states or countries. Cobb, a Republican repre ative from Kingman, said the Peacock Nuts operation is “mining our water.” She said this is why she is “obsessed” with doing something about out-of-state agribusiness using up Arizona’s precious resources to profit.
“The term I heard a lot of years ago was virtual water,” said Marvin Glotfelty, a groundwater expert and consultant. “It’s not legal to export groundwater or surface water out of the state. That’s by law. But you can export virtual water.”
Farms from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates doing just that have angered residents in the La Paz County communities of Vicksburg, Salome and Wenden.
“You can do that with what you generate as a product of the water,” Glotfelty said. “We don’t have the rules in place to prevent that from happening.”
Cobb wants to change that and have the state approve an emergency “irrigation non expansion” area for Kingman to limit any new agricultural wells from being drilled. It would be the fourth INA created under the state’s groundwater management act.
The state Department of Water Resources has already rejected this, effectively saying pumping hasn’t drained enough water out of the aquifer to meet the standards to create a new INA.
Bruce Babbitt, the former Arizona governor who signed the landmark groundwater management act in 1980, called the state’s letter to Mohave County rejecting the INA “mumbo jumbo.”
“The bottom line was just, sorry, we don’t have jurisdiction to help you,” Babbitt said.
Tom Buschatzke, director of the state’s Department of Water Resources, said the law prevents him from acting. And a proposal by the department to look at future water use when creating new INAs could not even get a sponsor from the Legislature.
“I can only look at the current rates of use,” Buschatzke said. “I can’t look out into the future. That’s what the law says. And so I don’t have the ability to project out what might happen 50, 100 years from now.”
Cobb said she wants the Legislature to create new rural management districts, which could enact new regulations to limit well drilling and groundwater extraction, tailored for the unique characteristics of each rural area.
Cobb has been trying to pass water legislation for five years. All she has managed to get is a study of groundwater conditions in Mohave and La Paz counties.
As elected officials fail to act, large farms continue to flee regulation elsewhere and find land and free groundwater in rural Arizona.
“You almost feel helpless because we can’t get anything passed legislatively,” Cobb said, because legislators are scared regulation in one area will spread to other areas.
The Arizona Republic identified major agricultural water users through interviews with residents, growers and public officials across the state, through property records and well data. By analyzing more than 250,000 well-drilling records, more than 30,000 well-depth records and property records in 10 Arizona counties, The Republic compiled a
Special report on groundwater
Arizona Republic reporters Ian James and Rob O’Dell analyzed tens of thousands of well records from across the state and interviewed farmers, residents and elected leaders about a growing groundwater crisis in rural areas of the state. They visited corporate farms growing crops for export, homeowners whose wells are drying up because of falling groundwater levels, and a river slowing dying from overpumping.
For videos, interactive graphics and the rest of the series, go to list of large out-of-state companies that could be — or have been — some of the largest water takers in the state.
They are just projections. It is impossible to know how much water large farms are taking. The state doesn’t require meters on wells in rural Arizona, so nobody is tracking how many gallons are pumped out. Well monitoring data is limited by voluntary participation and infrequent readings. And the large corporate farms are all new arrivals, coming to Arizona since 2012.
But well drilling records show these farms own more than 700 wells and collectively have drilled more than 200 wells deeper than 1,000 feet, allowing them to draw down aquifers more quickly and dry up shallower wells.
Combined, the seven companies own, farm or control more than 130,000 acres across the state. Though not all of that land is irrigated, if it were, it would equal nearly 15 percent of the harvested cropland in Arizona, as tallied by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Some grow nuts. Some grow hay. Some can draw water from nearly half a mile below ground. All have at least one thing in common: They take as much water as they want, with no limits.
The newcomers: Peacock Nuts
trees)
December 2018 7,500 (4,500 planted
10 wells 1,490 feet
5 for
Peacock Nuts LLC is a huge consortium of interests that includes Duarte Farms, which calls itself the largest permanent crops nursery in the United States, a farmer from Las Vegas and several U.S. investors who live abroad.
The operation was set up quickly. After coming together in December 2018, the group bought nearly 7,500 acres east of the Kingman Airport. The pistachio trees will eventually extend to the base of the Peacock Mountains.
Kathleen Tackett-Hicks, spokeswoman for the group, said Peacock Nuts plans to farm a maximum of 4,500 acres. Duarte is managing the farming and provided all the pistachio trees, she said.
She said concerns about water use are overblown because the property had already been approved by Mohave County for a housing project and was given a 100-year assured water supply of 13,000 acre-feet annually by the state.
“We were taking an already approved project that had failed and we’re using the water for ag purposes now,” TackettHicks said. “We’re using what was already allocated.”
Peacock was more open than other farms in sharing information. Its representative took Republic reporters and photographers on tours of the property and provided information about the farm’s water use for a legislative study on the Mohave County basins.
Tackett-Hicks touted the water-saving technology on the property, including double drip line irrigation with emitter clips to save water, along with moisture sensors throughout the property to determine the best times to water.
Peacock Nuts also didn’t bulldoze a natural wash on the property, instead electing to allow it to flow through the property and serve as a wildlife corridor, which Tackett-Hicks called unique for an agriculture project.
“From the get-go they wanted to do things right,” Tackett-Hicks said.
Kingman Mayor Jen Miles said orchard crops like pistachios also use much less water than alfalfa, which was planted on other farms north of Kingman.
Miles said she appreciated that Peacock is trying to use conservation measures like drip irrigation, but she said she’s still concerned that the expansion of agriculture in Kingman could deplete water the town relies on.
“It’s still water extraction for farming,” she said. “We must look at ways to make sure the expansion of agriculture is not going to be so fast it just depletes our aquifers.”
The giant dairy: Riverview near Willcox
December 2014 37,000 in Willcox area. 420
2,500 feet
With more than 37,000 acres in the Willcox area, Riverview LLP, a Minnesota dairy, may be the largest corporate farmer in the state and the farm with the most wells.
Started in 2014 with the purchase of the Faria Dairy on Kansas Settlement Road south of Willcox, it is building a huge expansion to the southeast called Turkey Creek Dairy.
Together the company plans to manage 150,000 cattle on both properties, said spokesman Kevin Wulf.
The new Turkey Creek farm has 14,000 “calf-huts” that look like large dog houses and are used to house calves that are immediately taken from their mothers after birth. The huts are arranged in rows that are longer than football fields.
Riverview produces the majority of the food for its cattle on its properties, growing wheat, silage corn and alfalfa. Records show the company has 420 wells. More than 90 of these wells are drilled to depths of more than 1,000 feet. Its deepest well is nearly 2,500 feet deep.
The round circles of bright green crops created by Riverview’s 200 center-pivot irrigation systems fall away from the road as Kansas Settlement slices north and south through the area. These emerald green circles can easily be seen from above or in satellite images.
Wulf declined to say how much water is used annually. He said the company has reduced water usage by 25 percent since it purchased the land.
Wulf said the dairy would like to be a part of the water solution in Willcox and is supportive of water regulation in Arizona, though he couldn’t say the exact rules he wants enacted.
“It has been pretty much a free-forall,” Wulf said. “There could be some things to be gained by having water regulated across the state.”
Peggy Judd, a Cochise County supervisor, is a huge proponent of farming in the Willcox area, particularly the Riverview dairy. She said the companies didn’t invest millions of dollars into the area “in order to fail.”
“They don’t intend to ever leave,” Judd said. “They know there’s enough water.”
But the water pumped by commercial farms has helped dry up wells owned by residents, who worry for their future. Riverview offered to contribute money toward a new water system being proposed for the residents close to its farm, Wulf said. But that won’t stop the pumping of the aquifer.
“This is a major, major deal for this county,” said Claire Miller, who lives near several farms. With tens of thousands of cattle and the company insisting on growing all of the food on its land, “you are talking a lot of water,” she said.
As a former business owner, Miller said she can see both sides of the issue. But she said she is scared by the sheer amount of water being pumped out.
“If the damn state, pardon my French, and the county do not stop handing out commercial well permits like your Christmas candy, us homeowners are going to be screwed,” she said. “I told my husband I want to move. I want to sell, that’s it.”
The Saudi hay farmers: Fondomonte
March 2014 10,000
28
1,210 feet
Residents in Vicksburg were enraged when a giant Saudi conglomerate named Almarai announced it was acquiring nearly 10,000 acres in La Paz County to grow hay to ship back to Saudi Arabia to feeds its cows.
A release by the Arab News added the kicker: “This transaction forms part of Almarai’s continuous effort to supply the highest quality alfalfa hay from outside the Kingdom to support its dairy business. It is also in line with the Saudi government direction toward conserving local resources.”
La Paz County residents read that as: They want to conserve their resources by using ours.
Almarai’s subsidiary, Fondomonte, owns much of the land east of Vicksburg Road to the mountains separating Vicksburg from Salome. Large opensided metal structures house thousands of stacks of hay and there are more structures than one can count. Access to the farm is strictly limited, with visitors required to go through security.
Fondomonte would only respond to questions in writing, but its representative, Jordan Rose, said the company owns 3,600 acres in Vicksburg and leases another 6,200. The company also leases property in Butler Valley, she said.
Rose said the company has spent $152 million in Arizona and employs 178 people. The company is the fifth largest employer in La Paz County, Rose said, and 102 of its employees live in company housing.
Fondomonte has spent $50 million to upgrade the irrigation infrastructure and technology to significantly reduce the water usage on the farm, Rose said, adding the company wants to be in Arizona forever and be “one of the most efficient farming operations possible.”
The company declined to disclose how much water it uses annually, saying use is consistent with other farming operations.
Nearby residents are calling for the state to stop issuing well permits because their wells are going dry.
“Fondomonte being a foreign company that is here taking our water, that doesn’t rub well … with the residents that are out here,” said Holly Irwin, the La Paz County supervisor who represents the area. “They look at it as, you know, how come we’re not doing anything here to prevent the foreign companies that are coming in here and utilizing our water shipping their products