Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs announced new groundwater-use rules for the Ranegras Plain Groundwater Basin on the state’s western edge, stepping into an intensifying drought fight in rural areas where wells have been running dry. The designation, announced Monday during her address to the Legislature, follows a determination by the Arizona Department of Water Resources that plummeting groundwater levels are causing land within the basin to sink, which the state agency said can reduce the amount of water that can be held underground.
Under the new framework, water users in the basin will have to track and report their groundwater use, and they will operate under a management plan formed by the Arizona Department of Water Resources and local stakeholders. The rules are aimed at slowing the depletion of aquifers through conservation mandates, officials said, rather than reversing the groundwater decline already underway.
“We can no longer sit idly by while our rural communities go without help,” Hobbs said. “They deserve solutions and security, not another decade of inaction and uncertainty.” The designation marks a shift of Arizona’s groundwater management approach toward more rural basins, where officials said residents and major land operators have faced fewer constraints than in areas closer to Tucson and Phoenix.
The state’s groundwater system, first enacted in 1980, was designed around managing demand in the more developed parts of Arizona, where rules tied to long-term water supply can apply before new housing is built. In much of rural Arizona, the lack of similar oversight has allowed pumping with fewer limits, contributing to a pattern in which large-scale farming operations expanded alongside rising pressure on aquifers, officials said.
For La Paz County resident Kari Ann Noeltner, the basin designation brings a practical change: she said she has started saving money in anticipation of needing to dig a deeper well for her own property. She described the designation as an effort to keep additional extraction from increasing without “some serious oversight,” saying it gives the community “some breathing room” to avoid new “straws put into this basin” without management.
The new rules also draw opposition from Republican lawmakers who have warned that regulation could threaten local farming and property values, according to the AP reporting. Hobbs previously toured the Fondomonte operation last May as she called on the Republican-led Legislature to pass what she described as a deal to offer some rural parts of the state a more flexible alternative to active management areas. Talks stalled, and the current designation instead follows an active-management model.
Philip Bashaw, chief executive of the Arizona Farm Bureau, said the agriculture industry will be among those most directly affected. He argued that it does not matter whether the operator is Fondomonte or a long-established family farm, because “Everyone is going to wind up with the same limitations,” he said.
A map from the Arizona Department of Water Resources shows land subsidence in the basin is most pronounced where Fondomonte farms. After Hobbs’ announcement, a Fondomonte spokesperson, Barrett Marson, said the company—described as a subsidiary of Saudi dairy giant Almari Co.—will continue to comply with state and local regulations. Marson said the company has invested significantly in water efficiencies on its long-established farm, adding in a statement that it is “proud” to support Arizona agriculture and the farming community.
The dispute over who should bear limits on groundwater pumping is also playing out in court. Attorney General Kris Mayes has accused Fondomonte of being a public nuisance and sued in 2024, alleging the company’s groundwater pumping threatens public health, safety and local infrastructure. Fondomonte has said the allegations are unfounded and characterized the lawsuit as an attempt to sidestep the Legislature and shape water policy through the courts. The new basin designation is subject to challenge administratively or through the court system, according to the reporting.