Key Points:

• The state says Fondomonte, a Saudi-owned alfalfa farm, is creating a public nuisance by excessive groundwater pumping

• A local coalition is attempting to stop the attorney general from taking action against Fondomonte

• While AG says case only involves Fondomonte, local coalition says outcome could impact water users across state

Attorney General Kris Mayes wants to stop a coalition of farmers, ranchers and cities from blocking her bid to stop groundwater pumping by a Saudi-owned alfalfa farm in western Arizona.

In a new court filing on May 27, Mayes said her lawsuit against Fondomonte is about a single company violating the state’s public nuisance law by pumping so much water it is harming the area. She hopes to use that law to limit pumping, given her admission that nothing the company is doing violates other statutes dealing with groundwater.

Fondomonte has denied breaking any laws.

But as the case awaits a trial, others operating under the banner of the Arizona Farm and Ranch Group say Mayes has no right to sue Fondomonte.

Assistant Attorney General Clinten Garrett, writing on behalf of Mayes, said Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Scott Minder should toss their request. He said the outcome of this case would have no legal effect on any of those concerned about the impact of a lawsuit against excessive pumping.

“The state alleges that Fondomonte is creating a public nuisance by consuming the majority of the waster-constrained Ranegras Basin’s groundwater supply and thereby causing dry wells and land subsidence,” he told Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Scott Minder.

But Garrett said none of those who want to intercede claim they are operating in the same basin. Instead, the list of those seeking to argue on behalf of Fondomonte — and claim that there is no legal basis for Mayes’ lawsuit — ranges from the Arizona Cattle Feeders Association and some private ranches to irrigation districts and the cities of Holbrook, Show Low and Winslow.

According to Garrett, no one on that list admits to engaging or planning to engage in disproportionate water usage, as is alleged against Fondomonte, and that means they have no legitimate legal interest in the outcome of the case.

What is true, however, is that the state has never used the claim of “legal nuisance” to go after a farm otherwise obeying water laws. The challengers acknowledge that if Mayes is successful in pursuing Fondomonte with this legal theory, it could impact their own ability to defend themselves if the state subsequently files similar claims against them.

Garrett told Minder that the fear of potential future lawsuits is legally irrelevant and not a basis for the judge to allow them to participate in the case.

And there’s something else.

He said that the would-be intervenors claim that the lawsuit “represents a dangerous expansion of public nuisance law that threatens the rights of all groundwater users in Arizona.” But, said Garrett, that is not just an overly broad claim with no legal basis, but also an assumption, not backed by fact, that every groundwater user has an interest in ensuring that Mayes loses her case against Fondomonte.

“Water users who are not causing harm to their surrounding community have every interest in stopping bad actors that are,” he said.

Arizona has virtually no regulations on groundwater pumping in rural areas. Instead, landowners are presumed to be able to pump as much as they can reasonably use, with no requirements to even monitor how much water they are withdrawing.

Mayes, in her lawsuit, contends that Fondomonte was aware of this lack of regulation when it came to La Paz County “to extract water at an unreasonable and excessive rate” because it cannot do so in Saudi Arabia, where alfalfa farming is banned. The crop is then shipped back to the home country to feed dairy cattle.

She says that since Fondomonte arrived in the area in 2014 the groundwater elevation in wells throughout the basin have rapidly declined, which is “threatening the water supply of the people, neighborhoods, and communities within the Ranegras Basin.” Mayes also said that the declining groundwater table has caused “escalating land subsidence” in the basin.

And Mayes said that even if no laws on water pumping are being violated — to the extent there are such regulations in rural areas — the activities of Fondomonte still fit within the definition of what constitutes a public nuisance.

To make their case, the state will need to prove that what Fondomonte is doing is “injurious to health” or “an obstruction of the free use of property that interferes with the comfortable enjoyment of life or property by an entire community or neighborhood or by a considerable number of persons.”

But Garrett said all that would be determined based on a single, specific and fact-intensive case. And, he said, none of that would affect the rights of anyone besides Fondomonte.

He also said there’s another reason for Minder to send the would-be intervenors packing. Garrett said Fondomonte hardly needs their help defending its interests.

“This single alfalfa farm is not the mom-and-pop operation that movants make it out to be,” he said.

“Rather, Fondomonte is the Arizona subsidiary of a Saudi Arabia conglomerate that earns over $5 billion in annual revenue and has a $14 billion market capitalization,” he said. “The suggestion that a multi-national business operation represented by a prominent local law firm needs reinforcements to litigate this case is not credible.”

No date has been set for a hearing.