State Pension Fund is Helping a Middle Eastern Firm Export Arizona’s Precious Groundwater
State Pension Fund is Helping a Middle Eastern Firm Export Arizona’s Precious Groundwater
The state’s retirement system invested heavily in a private land deal that allowed a foreign company to effectively ship Arizona’s scarce water supply overseas.
My absolute favorite blip from another source:
Soon after the company, Fondomonte Arizona (a subsidiary of Almarai), arrived in the Butler Valley in 2015, state planners suggested asking the company to install meters and report its water use...But the proposal “hit a stone wall,” John Schneeman, one of the planners, told The Post. It was spurned, he said, by officials in the administration of then-Gov. Doug Ducey-R who were “cautious of tangling with a powerful company.”
To advance its interests in Arizona, Fondomonte hired Jordan Rose, a lawyer and land-use specialist who leads one of the state’s top lobbying shops. Rose, a former finance chair of the Arizona GOP, helped run Ducey’s inaugural committee when he was elected governor in 2014. Ducey soon named her to a committee developing state groundwater policy, according to her website.
At the very least, the planners argued, Fondomonte should tell the state how much water it was pumping in the Butler Valley. Fondomonte, the memo advised, “may claim they are being unfairly singled out.” The memo was addressed to Ducey’s land commissioner, Lisa Atkins, who did not follow its recommendations
Two months later, as the Saudi-owned farm came under local criticism, Tom Buschatzke, the water resources director appointed by Ducey, published an op-ed telling readers of the Arizona Republic, “Don’t freak out about Saudi alfalfa. Those folks have as much right as any other individual in the state of Arizona to grow their produce, grow their crops, sell them, export them,” he told the Associated Press at the time.
Last month, the new governor, Democrat Katie Hobbs, unveiled a long-awaited study showing that groundwater in parts of the Phoenix area was insufficient to meet projected demand over the next century.
But Fondomonte has unlikely allies, including a cattle rancher in the Butler Valley whose land abuts Fondomonte’s farm. Boyce Andersen said he generally is “an ‘America first’ type of person” but is now just as concerned about the valley’s water being “taken by Phoenix” instead of flowing to livestock and crops. He faulted Arizona, not the foreign-owned firm, for the grim trade-offs facing the state.
“Why did our government leadership allow this to happen?” he asked.
Boyce, the government didn't allow this to happen. Fucking REPUBLICANS allowed this to happen. Their fingerprints are ALL THE FUCK OVER EVERY PIECE OF THIS STORY!! How the hell dipshits like this can, with a straight face, throw their hands up and over and over keep voting for Republicans who would sell their fucking children out of their own homes if it meant a bit more campaign cash, blows my goddamned mind.
Why? Just why? We need that shit now more than ever.
But they have to fucken realize you can't eat or drink money. Like we're really going to consume ourselves, aren't we?
Capitalism is a fucking disease. An area that is already water rationing is having its water supply sold to another country. This system is blatantly corrupt and useless.
It's OK. The conservatives in Arizona approve of being deprived of clean water... So, fuck 'em, I guess?
You can’t make this shit up. Just can’t.
Let's divest from these farms. And get some state legislation that bans this from happening again in the future.
Prepare for the Great American (Eastward) Migration