Locals at a loss as their small Arizona town is sinking beneath them: ‘It’s a train wreck waiting to happen’
A small town in Arizona is sinking into the ground – as locals and corporate farms drill deeper wells to access groundwater.
Residents in the small town of Wenden are being forced to dig thousands of feet underground as they battle over the sacred resource.
The Colorado River and its underground supply support everything from drinking water for cities like Los Angeles and Phoenix to massive agricultural operations growing water-heavy crops like alfalfa, much of which is exported.
Arizona only gets about 36 percent of its total water supply from the Colorado River, so many towns, like Wenden, depend on groundwater.
But, as the water supply dwindles from the impacts of extreme weather, locals and farmers alike are forced to dig deeper wells for groundwater that causes the land to sink with it.
‘It’s a train wreck waiting to happen,’ Gary Saiter, Head of the Wenden Water Improvement District, told NBC News.
‘In the last 15 years, Wenden itself has sunk into a subsidence bowl. We’ve sunk over 3.5 feet. We sink it another 2.2 inches per year. It’s absolutely out of balance. It’s not sustainable.’
Wenden has no access to the Colorado River and relies entirely on groundwater, which is being drained faster than it can replenish because both locals and farmers are digger deeper into the ground.
Gary Saiter (pictured), Head of the Wenden Water Improvement District, said his town has sunk over 3.5 feet
Residents in the small town of Wenden, Arizona (pictured) are being forced to dig thousands of feet underground as locals and megafarms compete for groundwater
Rob McDermott (pictured), who owns an RV park in Wenden, said he currently has an 800-foot well that cost $120,000 to dig
Rob McDermott, who owns an RV park in Wenden, said it feel impossible to compete because the megafarms can afford to digger deeper than small businesses.
He told NBC News he currently has an 800-foot well that cost $120,000 to dig.
A recent Arizona State University (ASU) study found that a rapid acceleration in groundwater usage in the Colorado River Basin is causing the area to sink
‘Just the way air keeps the tire pumped up, water keeps the land pumped up,’ lead researcher and ASU professor Jay Famiglietti told ABC 15.
He explained that when water is extracted from the aquifer and the surrounding layers, it’s like air leaving a tire, particularly in regions with a lot of clay minerals.
‘Clay minerals are flat, and so when the water that’s between them disappears, gets pumped out, then the flat minerals stack up, kind of like dishes in a sink, and that has the impact of lowering the ground surface,’ he said.
‘It will not be possible to keep doing everything that we’re doing everywhere in the state. Just, the water is not there to support it.’
Saiter’s wife, Devona, whose family has lived in Wenden since the 1960s and owns a shop told the local news station they have witnessed the effects of the depletion.
‘My shop, it has sunk in several inches in various locations,’ she said. ‘There’s gaps, there’s cracks,’ she said.
The ASU study also found that nearly 80 percent of the Grand Canyon State has no ground water regulations, meaning corporate farms do not have to report how much they use.
Saiter’s wife, Devona (pictured), said her shop has sunk several inches due to the depleting water supply
The ASU study also found that nearly 80 percent of the Grand Canyon State has no ground water regulations, meaning corporate farms do not have to report how much they use
Arizona Attorney General, Kris Mayes, recently filed a nuisance lawsuit against one of the mega farming company, Fondomonte, for inflicting harm on the community with its digging
Another issue that residence face is companies buying the water and land usage rights of in their communities, then pumping the water elsewhere.
‘Somebody selling our water, what we depend on to live, to a suburb so they can grow. So they can grow at our expense. That’s not fair,’ Saiter said.
Arizona Attorney General, Kris Mayes, recently filed a nuisance lawsuit against one of the mega farming company’s in the state, Fondomonte, for inflicting harm on the community with its digging.
‘They’re drilling 15,000 to 2,000 feet into the ground. No one else can afford to drill wells that deep, and they’re dewatering the aquifer so that people who have drilled wells to 400 feet no longer have water,’ she told NBC News.
‘The water has disappeared for them because the Saudis are sucking it out of the ground. Fondomonte told the network its water use is reasonable and it makes a ‘conscious effort to manage water use.’
The company claimed that the wells drying up are unrelated to its farms. They did not disclose how much groundwater its farms use, but Mayes’ office estimates the company uses 81 percent of all groundwater in the area.
Foreign-owned megafarms have become somewhat of an omnipresent sight in Arizona, as they’ve expanded from around 1.25 million acres in 2010 to nearly three million acres in 2020, according to the US Department of Agriculture.
