A group of farmers, ranchers and rural municipalities are going to court to try to stop Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes from pursuing her lawsuit to halt the pumping of groundwater by a Saudi-owned alfalfa farm. An attorney for the Arizona Farm and Ranch Group Coalition says they fear other farms in the future could be sued for their pumping of Arizona’s underground aquifers. Mayes is relying on a largely untested legal theory. She argues the company Fondomonte is creating a public nuisance due to the amount of groundwater it is pumping at its farms in La Paz County. She says the amount they are pumping has dried up nearby wells and has resulted in land subsidence. The coalition worries the outcome of the case could overturn existing water regulations and could be a dangerous expansion of public nuisance laws. But the real purpose behind the new court filing, attorney David Brown said, is the fear that if the attorney general wins in court, “this case is just the beginning.”

Other agriculture and irrigation news: 

• UC Agriculture and Natural Resources: News release: UCCE advisor provides first-of-its-kind avocado irrigation data
• Agricultural Water Management: Report: Quantifying evapotranspiration and crop coefficients of California ‘Hass’ avocado affected by various environmental and plant factors
• The North Bay Business Journal: Opinion: Are dry-farmed vineyards the future of the North Bay?
• Mother Jones: Trump’s assault on small farmers