Inside: Montini: Saudi Arabian cows are still ‘eating’ Arizona’s water.

Arizona is being drained dry by outof-state and foreign interests, and our state government isn’t doing anything to stop it.

If you’ve read any of the superb series by Rob O’Dell and Ian James on the depletion of Arizona’s groundwater you’re aware of the problem.

As the reporters wrote: “Arizona’s groundwater levels are plummeting in many areas. The problem is especially severe in unregulated rural areas where there are no limits on pumping. The water levels in more than 2,000 wells have dropped more than 100 feet since they were first drilled. The number of newly constructed wells is accelerating, and wells are being drilled deeper and hitting water at lower levels.

“Big farming companies owned by out-of-state investors and foreign agriculture giants have descended on rural Arizona and snapped up farmland in areas where there is no limit on pumping.”

While this news may be new to you, it is not new to Arizona lawmakers.

Nearly four years ago, in February 2016, I spoke with La Paz County Supervisor Holly Irwin. She’d already been sounding the alarm.

Some months before I spoke with Irwin the investigative radio program Reveal reported that a Saudi dairy company bought 15 square miles of land to grow water-intensive hay for export back to the Middle East for hungry cows to eat.

“Once it’s gone, our water is gone,” Irwin told me. “We want everyone to live here. We want the farmers to do what they do because they’re important to the local economy. We want the generations of families who have been her to continue to live here. But things have to change or that can’t happen.”

Why are places like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, perhaps even China, interested in Arizona farmland?

First, they have essentially drained their desert aquifers and need to look elsewhere. Second, rural areas like La Paz County are perfect.

When the state created Arizona’s groundwater law in the 1980s it put limits on the amount of water that can be siphoned from the ground around major population areas like Phoenix and Tucson. But rural counties have no restrictions.

Irwin told me in 2016, “People are worried. Some already are having issues with their wells. I know the governor wants to put together a plan for dealing with the state’s water issues. But we need help now.”

They didn’t get it then.

They still haven’t really gotten it. In their series, O’Dell and James, tell the story of Rodney Hayes and his wife Nancy Blevins and how their well went dry in July as Nancy was doing dishes. And how they had to haul water. And how they live near a giant Sau

di Arabian hay farm in Vicksburg.

Four years ago, Tom Buschatzke, Gov. Doug Ducey’s choice to head Arizona Department of Water Resources, told a reporter, “People are concerned about the water embedded in crops, obviously. However, our viewpoint is that there is an economic value in growing of crops. Those folks have as much right as any other individual in the state of Arizona to grow their produce, grow their crops, sell them, export them.”

Keep that in mind when the state faces mandatory water restrictions. And if someone asks where Arizona’s water went, just tell them, “Saudi Arabian cows ate it.”