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How deep is their water?
Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs toured southern Arizona earlier this month to talk about water with the people who rely on it. She met farmers, residents and stood on the edge of a pretty impressive fissure near Kansas Settlement in Cochise County, a gash ripped into the desert by too much groundwater pumping.
A week later, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes sent a letter to the state Department of Water Resources demanding that the agency revoke a deep well drilling permit issued to Fondomonte, the company whose alfalfa fields triggered a political firestorm when the buyers of the hay turned out to be dairy operations in Saudi Arabia.
Mayes has also traveled the state hearing stories from rural residents about declining water levels and wells ruined by huge corporate farms, and the Hobbs administration has begun exploring new water management regulations in some parts of the state, impatient with the slow pace of change at the Legislature.