Small Arizona town sinks as groundwater pumping for megafarms and residents depletes aquifer

WENDEN, Ariz. — Residents of the small Mohave County community of Wenden say the town has sunk more than 3.5 feet in recent years as local wells run dry and larger agricultural operations drill ever deeper to tap groundwater. Local officials and an Arizona State University study point to accelerated groundwater pumping across the Colorado River Basin and a lack of statewide regulation as drivers of land subsidence that residents describe as a public-safety and infrastructure crisis.

"It's a train wreck waiting to happen," said Gary Saiter, head of the Wenden Water Improvement District. Saiter said the district has measured roughly 3.5 feet of settlement in about 15 years and that the ground continues to decline by about 2.2 inches per year. Wenden has no access to Colorado River allocations and depends entirely on groundwater, which residents and local businesses say is being drained faster than it can recharge.

Residents and small business owners describe the struggle and mounting costs of keeping water flowing. Rob McDermott, who owns an RV park in Wenden, said his current well is about 800 feet deep and cost roughly $120,000 to drill. He said it is increasingly difficult for individuals and small operators to compete with corporate farms that can afford much deeper wells.

An Arizona State University study cited by local officials and media found that groundwater withdrawals in the Colorado River Basin have accelerated rapidly in recent years, contributing to measurable subsidence across parts of the region. Jay Famiglietti, an ASU professor and lead researcher, explained the geologic mechanism: when water is removed from aquifers, clay and other fine-grained minerals consolidate and the ground surface can drop, an effect that is often irreversible.

"Just the way air keeps the tire pumped up, water keeps the land pumped up," Famiglietti said. "When the water that's between [clay] minerals disappears, the flat minerals stack up, kind of like dishes in a sink, and that has the impact of lowering the ground surface. 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."

The ASU analysis also concluded that nearly 80% of Arizona lacks groundwater reporting requirements, a regulatory gap that officials say makes it difficult to track how much water is being withdrawn by large agricultural operations. State Attorney General Kris Mayes has filed a nuisance lawsuit against Fondomonte, an agribusiness that operates farms in western Arizona, alleging the company’s deep wells have harmed nearby communities by dewatering the aquifer.

Mayes said the depth and scale of drilling by some large farms leave shallower well owners without water. "They're drilling thousands of 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 reporters. Mayes' office estimated that Fondomonte accounts for 81% of groundwater use in the area affected by the complaint.

Fondomonte responded that its water use is reasonable, that it makes a "conscious effort to manage water use," and that wells drying up near its operations are unrelated to the company's activities. The company did not disclose detailed groundwater withdrawal figures in response to media inquiries.

Locals describe visible damage tied to subsidence. Devona Saiter, whose family has lived in Wenden since the 1960s and who owns a local shop, said her building has settled several inches in places and developed gaps and cracks. Utility lines, roads and other infrastructure in and around Wenden also show signs of uneven settlement, according to residents and local officials.

The tensions in Wenden reflect larger water-management challenges across the southwestern United States. The Colorado River supplies about 36% of Arizona's total water, supporting cities such as Phoenix and Los Angeles and large-scale agriculture that grows water-intensive crops like alfalfa for export. With surface supplies strained by prolonged drought and extreme weather, both municipal and agricultural water users have turned increasingly to groundwater to meet demand.

Federal and state authorities have taken some steps in recent years to address water shortages on the Colorado River and to encourage conservation, but groundwater governance in Arizona remains largely locally controlled. Critics say that the combination of limited reporting requirements, increased agricultural leasing and purchases of land and water rights, and more powerful drilling technologies has allowed some operators to extract large volumes of groundwater with limited transparency.

The growth of large, often foreign-owned farms in Arizona has been rapid: U.S. Department of Agriculture data show irrigated farmland in the state expanded from about 1.25 million acres in 2010 to nearly 3 million acres in 2020. That scale, residents and some officials say, has concentrated water demand in regions that are already hydrologically stressed.

State officials have signaled attention to the issues raised by Wenden and similar communities. The nuisance lawsuit brought by the attorney general is among the more assertive legal efforts to challenge large-scale groundwater extraction, and it underscores the dispute over who should bear the costs of water scarcity and subsidence.

For Wenden residents, the effects are immediate and personal. "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," Gary Saiter said. Local officials and scientists say addressing subsidence and long-term water security will require better data on groundwater use, changes to reporting and permitting, and regional planning that accounts for limited aquifer recharge in a warming, drier climate.

As legal and policy debates continue, families, farmers and small businesses in Wenden face rising costs and infrastructure risks tied to a shrinking underground supply that sustains the town and many others across the Southwest.