Arizona Attorney General Continues Lawsuit Against Fondomonte Over La Paz Groundwater

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes is pressing forward with a public nuisance lawsuit against Fondomonte Arizona, LLC, accusing the Saudi-owned company of pumping vast volumes of groundwater from the Ranegras Plain Basin in La Paz County to grow alfalfa for export. The complaint, filed in Maricopa County Superior Court in December 2024, seeks a judicial declaration that Fondomonte’s conduct is a public nuisance under Arizona Revised Statutes § 13-2917, an injunction to stop “excessively pumping groundwater,” and creation of an abatement fund.

The Attorney General’s office points to a striking data point in the complaint: Fondomonte reportedly pumped 31,196 acre-feet of groundwater in 2023, a total the office says represented 81 percent of the basin’s withdrawals that year. The complaint alleges that the pumping has produced declining groundwater levels and escalating land subsidence and that those impacts threaten public health, safety, and infrastructure for everyone who relies on the basin for water. “Fondomonte’s unsustainable groundwater pumping has caused devastating consequences for the Ranegras Plain Basin, putting the health and future of the residents of La Paz County at risk,” Mayes said in the Attorney General’s press release. The release also quoted Mayes: “Arizona law is clear: no company has the right to endanger an entire community’s health and safety for its own gain.”

The case sits amid overlapping regulatory activity. The Arizona Department of Water Resources recently designated the Ranegras Plain Basin as an active management area and has adopted new groundwater protections. ADWR’s rules provide a mechanism for awarding grandfathered water rights to users based on historical pumping before protections take effect. Mayes’ briefing argues those protections will be incremental and long-term and that a court ruling finding unlawful pumping could affect whether Fondomonte is eligible for grandfathered rights. As Mayes’ briefing put it, “Public nuisance and active management areas are complementary.” The briefing also accuses Fondomonte of trying to use ADWR’s action to “avoid any responsibility for its conduct.”

Fondomonte has asked the court to dismiss the suit, arguing that groundwater regulation is exclusively within ADWR’s authority. Richie Taylor, spokesperson for the Attorney General’s Office, said in a statement, “The attorney general is bringing her case under public nuisance law, which she has the authority to do.” Meanwhile the Arizona State Land Department has moved to terminate four Fondomonte leases in Butler Valley, even as the company continues operations in the Ranegras Plain Basin.

A Superior Court judge is weighing whether local regulations and the ADWR action affect the state’s case. Newsfromthestates noted that “A ruling on that suit is expected soon.” For La Paz County residents, the immediate stakes are practical: one acre-foot supplies roughly three single-family homes for a year, and continued high-volume pumping is the complaint’s central concern for domestic wells, irrigation reliability, and ground stability. The next steps to watch are any court ruling on Fondomonte’s dismissal motion, ADWR’s implementation of its active management rules, and whether a judicial finding will change how water rights are treated in the basin.