Water in Virginia is not a Megadrought but a Probable Tool for Improving the Health of a Small Desert Town
Virginia doesn’t have a megadrought like some parts of the United States, but it has water problems all the same: Homes and businesses in the Hampton Roads region, in the southeastern corner of the state, are drawing groundwater faster than it can be replenished. The earth is sinking in a few places because of the situation.
They think they might have found a solution in the sewer. The region takes a million gallons of treated wastewater and pumps it into the Potomac Aquifer, which supplies drinking water for the area. And there are plans to increase that to 100 million gallons in the coming years.
In towns and cities around the country, they are using treated wastewater to increase their drinking water supplies. According to data collected by the National Alliance for WATER INNOVATION, the number of drinking water reuse projects has more than doubled over the past two decades.
Michael Kiparsky is the director of the Wheeler Water Institute at the University of California, Berkeley.
Workers with the water district in Wenden, Arizona, saw something remarkable last year as they slowly lowered a camera into the drought-stricken town’s well: The water was moving.
But the aquifer which sits below the small desert town in the southwestern part of the state is not a river; it’s a massive, underground reservoir which stores water built up over thousands of years. And that water is almost always still.
Saiter told CNN that he and the well men have never seen anything like this before. The farm was “pumping and it was sucking the water through the aquifer.”
Residents and farms pull water from the same underground pools, and as the water table declines, the thing determining how long a well lasts is how deeply it was drilled.
It is not just farming operations. Mining and the military, with huge presence in the state, benefit from the state’s generous water laws. It is impossible to know how much water is being used by one of the state’s largest employers, according to a recent report on water use in Arizona. But manufacturing missiles has a water cost, too. The product is being shipped to Saudi Arabia.
Legislation forbids you from taking water and exporting it out of the state, according to Marvin, a well-drilling expert. You can take virtual water and export it, if you want to, as long as the water is used for something.
Residents and local officials say lax groundwater laws give agriculture the upper hand, allowing farms to pump unlimited water as long as they own or lease the property to drill wells into. In around 80% of the state, Arizona has no laws overseeing how much water corporate megafarms are using, nor is there any way for the state to track it.
In 2015, officials say that shallow residential and municipal well levels began to dry up. In Salome, local water utility owner Bill Farr told CNN his well – which supplies water to more than 200 customers, including the local schools – is “nearing the end of its useful life.”
And in Wenden, water in the town well has been plummeting. Saiter told CNN that in the late 1950s the depth-to-water was about 100 feet deep, but that it is now about 540 feet. Saiter is anxious the farms’ rapid water use could push the water table too low for the town well to draw safe water from.
Middle East agriculture companies deplete their water, which is the reason they are here. “That’s what angers people the most. We should be taking care of our own, and we just allow them to come in, purchase property and continue to punch holes in the ground.”
The Saudi Arabia banned growing thirsty crops in order to feed its livestock and cattle. The reason was simple: the arid Middle East is running out of water and agriculture is a huge consumer.
But vast dairy operations are a point of national pride in the Middle East, according to Eckart Woertz, director of the Germany-based GIGA Institute for Middle East Studies. They had to find water somewhere else.
Valued at $14.3 billion, the Almarai Company – which owns about 10,000 acres of farmland in Arizona under its subsidiary, Fondomonte – is one of the biggest players in the Middle East’s dairy supply. The company also owns about 3,500 acres in agriculture-heavy Southern California, according to public land records, where they use Colorado River water to irrigate crops.
The Story of the Vicksburg Ranch: An Arizona Farm Company Assettized by the Fondomonte Family in the midst of a Dry Dry Period
It gives you a sense that you are close to the source. There is a feeling of false security if you own land or lease land somewhere else and have direct bilateral access to water.
The Vicksburg Ranch is owned by the Fondomonte family. The company spent $47.5 million to buy nearly 10,000 acres of land there in 2014, and it leases additional farmland from the state.
Huge storage facilities were erected to hold the harvests. There were rows of small houses for the farm’s workers to live in. According to local officials, they had to repair the highway because of increased agricultural traffic.
Representatives of Fondomonte declined an interview request for this story, but Jordan Rose, the company’s Arizona attorney, provided a statement: “Fondomonte decided to invest in the southwest United States just as hundreds of other agricultural businesses have because of the high-quality soils, and climatic conditions that allow growth of some of the finest quality alfalfa in the world.”
There is nothing illegal about foreign-owned farming in the US. Farmers use the West’s water to grow crops which are eventually exported around the globe.
As the world is gripped with the most severe and longest dry time in records, residents and officials have questioned the worth of allowing countries to have access to water and resources as great as gold in the Southwest.
Arizona is one of the last places in the United States that should be reckless with its water resources. The Colorado River is the state’s primary source of water, and it hit an extreme low this year. Water managers from seven states in the river basin did not meet a federal deadline to make dramatic reductions. The Bureau of Reclamation has ordered Arizona to reduce its use of water from the river by 21 percent. If water is lost in the Colorado River then Arizona’s towns and rural areas are at risk as well.
Campbell said we are exporting our economy overseas. There isn’t any Saudi Arabian milk coming back to Southern California or Arizona. The value of the agricultural output is not reflected in value to the US.
The Wenden Water District: Living in the Desert with a Beautiful Life without a Desert Living Cost. A Conversation with Gary Saiter
Despite the ever-looming water crisis, people are still drawn to small Southwest towns like Wenden and Salome because of the low home prices and the freedom of desert living.
Rural Arizona is still a good place to live because of its low housing costs. Saiter, the head of the Wenden water district and a long time resident, told CNN that homes cost between $30,000 and $40,000 and taxes are less than $300 per year.
“People are able to afford to live here, versus Phoenix,” Gary’s wife, De Vona Saiter, told CNN. Median incomes in the county are low, “but you can still have a beautiful life.”
The Saiters’ house and rental properties around town are decorated with hand-drawn art, gardens and antiques.
Kaisor is a longtime resident who first moved to Wenden with her family in the 1960s. She moved back to the rural area after many years in Phoenix.
Kaisor had a home that was flooded with mud this summer. There was a recent monsoon flood that carried rain from the farm into Wenden. Gary Saiter believes Al Dahra farm staff have rerouted natural waterways, forcing the rainfall into town rather than out into the desert washes.
Kaisor and her neighbors’ fences are reinforced with sheet metal to try to stop mud and water from coming into their houses, but Kaisor was trapped in her house during a storm earlier this year.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/05/us/arizona-water-foreign-owned-farms-climate/index.html
Arizona Water Foreign Owned Farms: A View from a State Farmer’s View of the Civil Rights Concerning Al Dahra Farms
Al Dahra did not respond to CNN’s questions for this story, including questions about its water usage, the uptick in residential flooding and potential rerouting of natural waterways.
The statement the company provided to the Republic was for a story that was published in March of this year. The company plans on staying in Arizona for a long time.
When it gets windy, a “dirt wall” of soil and dust whips up from the alfalfa fields, exacerbating the Saiters’ allergies. And most noticeably, the ground is literally sinking as the water below the surface gets pumped out.
The floor in De Vona’s store has sunk and the ground around one wellhead has sunk so much that it needed to be cut and resized.
Gary Saiter doesn’t care if the farm is owned by a company in another country. He just wishes they were better neighbors, because he doesn’t see it being much of a difference who owns the farm.
The farmers are providing local economic benefits according to the leader of a high school athletics program. Rose, Fondomonte’s Arizona attorney, told CNN in an email the company is the fourth-largest employer in the county.
They employ a lot of people. “If they weren’t farming it, someone else would be. A lot of people are upset it is not Americans farming.
Avila praised the farms for their internship programs and career fairs. Last year, the irrigation pump and generator that Al Dahra donated to water the high school fields was used. Avila said the pump installation for the field was fast and took just a few weeks.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/05/us/arizona-water-foreign-owned-farms-climate/index.html
Arizona Unveils How Much Groundwater Is Left in Rural Areas: The Case Against Land-Leasing For Water Resources Reform
For many years, Cobb tried to advance bills to allow local officials to regulate their underground water supplies. The bills never got a committee hearing, Cobb said, never mind making it to the floor for a vote. CNN reached out to Gov. Doug Ducey and top Arizona lawmakers in the state House and Senate for comment; none responded.
The laws governing active management areas, orAMAs, are strong compared to other Southwest states, said Kathleen Ferris, a former top state water official and senior researcher at Arizona State University.
Water officials can measure whether water levels in the aquifers are going up or down, but because groundwater is so lightly regulated in rural areas, they don’t have enough data to answer a crucial question: Exactly how much water is left?
Tom Buschatzke, the director of the Department of Water Resources, mentioned that Arizona can not manage what it doesn’t measure. “We do the best we can with the data and estimated data that we have, but it really begs questions about how much benefit we can really provide.”
Arizona attorney general candidate Kris Mayes, a Democrat, has seized on the state’s practice of leasing public land to corporate farms, including more than 6,000 acres leased to Fondomonte, according to the state land department.
The second-largest agricultural lessor of Arizona land is paying the state a heavily discounted rate which does not take their water usage into account.
“The comprehensive data determined from these studies will allow the Department to make an informed decision about not only future land use in these areas but also help determine what the future value of the land is as well,” Fathauer said in an email.
The kind of sweeping water reforms that are needed in Arizona need to come from the state legislature, according to outgoing state House member, a Republican.
As the Colorado River shrinks and Arizona’s share of the water continues to be cut, Cobb told CNN the state’s approach to groundwater has been unthinkable.
“Why are we allowing a foreign company to come into Arizona – which is drought-stricken right now – and have a sweetheart deal [on leases], when we are trying to conserve as much water as we can?” She asked.