MSN: 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.
Gary Saiter, a longtime resident and head of the Wenden Water Improvement District, said the water was moving because it was being pumped rapidly out of the ground by a neighboring well belonging to Al Dahra, a United Arab Emirates-based company farming alfalfa in the Southwest.
Al Dahra did not respond to multiple requests for comment on this story.
“The well guys and I have never seen anything like this before,” Saiter told CNN. The farm was “pumping and it was sucking the water through the aquifer.”
Groundwater is the lifeblood of the rural Southwest, but just as the Colorado River Basin is in crisis, aquifers are rapidly depleting from decades of overuse, worsening drought and rampant agricultural growth.
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.
Now frustration is growing in Arizona’s La Paz County, as shallower wells run dry amid the Southwest’s worst drought in 1,200 years. Much of the frustration is pointed at the area’s huge, foreign-owned farms growing thirsty crops like alfalfa, which ultimately get shipped to feed cattle and other livestock overseas.
“You can’t take water and export it out of the state, there’s laws about that,” said Arizona geohydrologist Marvin Glotfelty, a well-drilling expert. “But you can take ‘virtual’ water and export it; alfalfa, cotton, electricity or anything created in part from the use of water.” more
And as usual the government won’t do a fucking thing about it.
It’s been said many times, wars will be fought over fresh water!
Are there “rates” on the amount of water pumped, even from a common source?
Can it be “tiered” (more charged for more used)?
Make it so damned expensive for the foreigners to “own” the land/pump the water.
UAE sits right on the Mediterranean, all they need for desalination is energy. And they have a crapload of that. We have to stop foreign companies from buying our farm land.
“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.”
I’m not a farmer but dairy quality alfalfa is selling for less then $100 dollars a ton around here and it ain’t irrigated. Why aren’t the saudis importing that product or the all ready cut up meat products raised with that same alfalfa?…
My knowledge is based on me buying 1200 to 1500 lb rolls for my goats at $50 bucks each…
I bet there are politicians that get paid through the back door.
Nothing new here.
@Tony R — Excellent point. The Emirates could do it all at home.
BTW, the UAE are on the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. They’d have to put a pipeline through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Israel to get Mediterranean water.
AL
https://www.statista.com/statistics/745140/uae-desalination-water-plants-capacity/
And they’re opening more next year. They have more water, per capita, than we do.
Oh, so this is why the government wants us to start eating bugs– so there’s more water to grow more alfalfa to be eaten by cows in other countries.
Just how much money is the democrat party taking from middle east countries?
@Brad — Yeah, I heard. I guess it’s so they can have their indoor ski runs and surfing beaches.
Follow the money. Whowever is in charge of AZ’s water policy and enforcement is on Xi’s payroll.
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CHEM TRAILS caused the drought.
Why does it matter who’s doing the exploiting?
Result is the same whether the government that is supposed to look out for its citizens is not doing the job, or some foreign entity THAT SHOULDN’T OWN LAND IN THE US AT ALL?
No doubt the swindling Joe Biden and sinister democrat party engineered it all and for massive payment to deceive.
Sure….con on over and buy up our land. Not a problem….as long as I get my cut.
Foreignerss can’t buy land in Mexico. We can lease it for 99 years, but not buy it outright. That should be a thing here.
The DESERT Southwest does not have a drought problem.
They have a people problem.
Too fucking many of them for the available water.