Who's Taking Your Water.

Fondomonte is a subsidiary of Almarai, the largest dairy company in the Middle East, itself majority owned by the Saudi government. They purchased 10,000 acres in La Paz County, Arizona — one of the most water-stressed counties in the state — and began pumping groundwater at approximately 64,000 gallons per minute to grow alfalfa hay for export to Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia banned domestic alfalfa farming in 2018 specifically to protect their own water supply. Rather than reduce consumption, they outsourced the water depletion to Arizona, where groundwater outside Active Management Areas requires no reporting and no recharge obligation.

In January 2026, Governor Hobbs rescinded Fondomonte's state land lease — but the damage to the Ranegras Plain aquifer, which has dropped over 242 feet since the 1980s, cannot be undone. And Fondomonte is one of dozens of similar operations that received no attention.

Sources: La Paz County Supervisor / Sentient reporting, ADWR, phys.org January 2026, USDA FAS 2025

Al Dahra is an Abu Dhabi-based agricultural conglomerate operating alfalfa farming operations in Pinal County, Arizona. Like Fondomonte, Al Dahra grows alfalfa for export to the UAE and surrounding Gulf states — exporting Arizona groundwater as cattle and horse feed that never returns to the basin.

The UAE imported 76,932 metric tons of U.S. alfalfa in 2024 — a 42% decline from prior years, but still tens of millions of dollars worth of Arizona water shipped overseas. Pinal County has among the fastest-dropping water tables in the state.

These operations exist in a regulatory gap: outside of Active Management Areas, Arizona law allows landowners to pump "reasonable" amounts of groundwater with zero reporting, zero oversight, and zero accountability to the communities downstream.

Sources: USDA FAS 2025, Hay and Forage Magazine February 2025, ADWR

Cascade Investment LLC, the private investment vehicle of Bill Gates, purchased approximately 24,800 acres of Arizona desert west of Buckeye in 2017 for a reported $80 million. The land is designated for a planned community called Belmont (also referred to as Sun Valley or Los Oro) — a proposed city of up to 300,000 residents covering roughly 80 square miles.

The project has received fast-track consideration from Maricopa County. The water source for 300,000 new residents in one of the most water-stressed regions of the country has never been publicly documented or guaranteed.

This is not a conspiracy theory. It is public record. The land purchases are documented. The development plans are filed. The question of where the water comes from remains unanswered — and largely unasked by the officials approving the project.

Sources: Public land records, Arizona Republic reporting, Maricopa County planning documents

A major data center development approved by Pinal County sits directly above the Santa Cruz River aquifer system — the same underground water source that has sustained the Tohono O'odham and Akimel O'odham (Pima) peoples for thousands of years.

Data centers use evaporative cooling — a process that converts groundwater to steam and releases it into the atmosphere. Unlike agricultural irrigation, which partially percolates back into the soil, evaporative cooling returns zero water to the aquifer. The water is simply gone.

When the aquifer drops below the reach of tribal wells, the O'odham people have no alternative source. They cannot afford to drill deeper. They cannot afford water trucks. They have no political leverage against the corporations that fast-tracked these approvals. They are the shortest straw in the glass — and nobody is asking what happens to them when it runs dry.

Kevin O'Leary — who publicly boasts of 22 million social media followers and has used that platform to call environmental advocates "Russian and Chinese assets" — is a named investor in the Solaris data center project proposed for Arizona.

The proposed site sits on or adjacent to federally protected migratory bird habitat. The project proposes to be powered by natural gas — not renewable energy — meaning it would simultaneously deplete Arizona's groundwater through evaporative cooling and generate carbon emissions from fossil fuel combustion.

When advocacy groups — including teenage environmental podcasters who have been documenting water issues since they were twelve — raised objections, O'Leary went on his podcast and accused them of being foreign intelligence assets. No evidence was provided. No retraction was issued.

O'Leary then took his claims to Marco Rubio, who took them to Republican-controlled oversight committees. The pattern — silence critics, fast-track permits, extract profit, leave — is documented and ongoing.

Sources: O'Leary podcast statements, public project filings, federal migratory bird habitat records