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Rob O'Dell

Jun 9, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read • Read on X

Most people know that rural Arizona has a groundwater problem because farms can pump water with no regulation. But most don’t know Arizona is making the problem worse by renting state trust land to large farms. A🧵

In remote Western Arizona, the groundwater is earmarked as a future water supply for Phoenix if the Colorado River continues drying up. But the state is allowing a Saudi Arabian company to use the water to grow alfalfa to feed cows in the Middle East.

And the state is giving them a sweet deal to do it. Saudi Arabia's Fondomonte is paying $25 an acre to farm the land, while the state’s own mass appraisal says the most reasonable rent in the area is $125 to $175 an acre.

@ByIanJames

That’s not even considering the cost of the water. State reports say the Saudis' use water worth up to $3.9 million annually to grow alfalfa. And they pay about $86,000 to rent the land. @ByIanJames Read more here: azcentral.com/in-depth/news/…

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More from @robodellaz

Rob O'Dell

@robodellaz

Dec 5, 2019

@ByIanJames

For the past six months, I’ve traveled with @ByIanJames and @HenleMark through rural Arizona to investigate Arizona’s next water crisis: a free-for-all in the desert where there are no rules on pumping groundwater. THREAD

@ByIanJames

@ByIanJames @HenleMark Water levels have plummeted in many unregulated areas. Some wells have fallen more than 200 to 400 feet. Huge industrial farms have moved in from other states and foreign countries to pump out even more. Homeowners wells are going dry, and no one will help them.

@ByIanJames

@ByIanJames @HenleMark Megafarms and deeper wells are draining the water beneath rural Arizona – quietly, irreversibly. This is water that has built up over thousands of years.
azcentral.com/in-depth/news/…

Read 17 tweets

Rob O'Dell

@robodellaz

Apr 4, 2019

@USATODAY

More than a year ago, I was asked to do the impossible. Help build an algorithm that could tease out what statehouse bills were created from model legislation (ie copy-paste legislation). Along with a terrific team @USATODAY and @azcentral. We did it. Here’s how. (THREAD)

We examined almost 1 million bills in all 50 statehouses and Congress from 2010 to 2018. We compared them to a database of more than 2,000 model bills that we collected by hand. We used a method similar to how plagiarism is detected.
azcentral.com/in-depth/news/…

We found that many model bills are misleading and disguise their true intent – like this one about asbestos “transparency” that makes it harder for those people dying of mesothelioma to sue: