Posted on 12/26/2022 9:45:19 AM PST by Theoria
Arizona’s water is running worryingly low. Amid the worst drought in more than a millennium, which has left communities across the state with barren wells, the state is depleting what remains of its precious groundwater. Much of it goes to private companies nearly free, including Saudi Arabia’s largest dairy company.
Thanks to fresh scrutiny this year from state politicians, water activists and journalists, the Saudi agricultural giant Almarai has emerged as an unlikely antagonist in the water crisis. The company, through its subsidiary Fondomonte, has been buying and leasing land across western Arizona since 2014. This year The Arizona Republic published a report showing that the Arizona State Land Department has been leasing 3,500 acres of public land to Almarai for a suspiciously low price.
The case has prompted calls for an investigation into how a foreign company wound up taking the state’s dwindling water supplies for a fee that might be as low as one-sixth the market rate. But the focus on the Saudi scheme obscures a more fundamental problem: pumping groundwater in Arizona remains largely unregulated. It’s this legal failing that, in part, allows the Saudi company to draw unlimited amounts of water to grow an alfalfa crop that feeds dairy cows 8,000 miles away.
Even if Fondomonte leaves the state, it will be only a matter of time before Arizona sucks its aquifers dry. While a 1980 state law regulates groundwater use in a handful of urban areas, water overuse is common even in these places. The situation is worse in the roughly 80 percent of Arizona’s territory that falls outside these regulations. In most of rural Arizona, whoever has the money to drill a well can continue to pump till the very last drop.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Did the natives keep water records 1000 years ago.
Amazing the “scientists” know exactly how much it rained 1000 years ago and exactly what the weather will be 100 years from now but can’t predict the weather more than a week in advance.
In our corner of AZ, we don’t use Colorado river water, but rather have deep wells and aquifer’s which are forecast to provide plenty of water for 100+ years.☺
I think that you and I are on the same side, here - but it is, indeed, statistically easier to predict how many people will die in a large city in the course of next year than will die in a small village in the course of next week.
Statistics!
Regards,
***Amid the worst drought in more than a millennium,***
History shows that the 24 year drought in A.D. 1276 through 1299 was even worse. No big cities gobbling up water at that time but so many Indian pueblos had to be abandoned from Southern Utah, Mesa Verde, Chaco Canyon, and many more.
Arizona has quite a lot of deep ground water, but it is so alkali it cannot be used.
***Amazing the “scientists” know exactly how much it rained 1000 years ago***
Tree ring data shows good and bad years. There was a real dry period around 1275-1299.
NYT editors, how did you let this one get by?? Here, I'll do your job for you.
Amid the worst drought in more than five billion years,
I only have to go down 4-5 feet to hit water!
Who would tend the lawns?
ALL water is recycled.
Sooner or later.
I’d bet my well water has passed thru a whale’s urinary system.
Maybe more than once.
tree rings
https://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/beyond-data/how-tree-rings-tell-time-and-climate-history
When you build a resort in the desert, you eventually go dry.
Sorry. Life sucks. Go to Cali.
I’m also rather wondering about the water level @ Lake Mead...
Slab City
it fluctuates due to supply and demand.
Um, not according to the water guy. By far it’s ag.
Diversion of water is not the same as loss of water.
😁. Haha!
Democrats can do that.
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