Farmers Investment Co. v. Pima Mining Co‪.‬

The following facts are material to the determination of this action. On October 24, 1966, the State Land Department of the State of Arizona executed a 10-year lease herein designated as Lease No. 906, whereby 319 acres within the Sahuarita-Continental Critical Groundwater Area were leased to the Pima Mining Company. Farmers Investment owns and farms approximately 7,000 acres within the Critical Groundwater Area of the asserted value of fifty million dollars. A substantial part of its acreage is contiguous to or near the leased lands. It has a right in the waters percolating beneath the soil, which is common to all the overlying landowners within the groundwater area. State ex rel. Morrison v. Anway, 87 Ariz. 206, 349 P.2d 774 (1960). A critical groundwater area is a groundwater basin not having sufficient ground water to provide a reasonably safe supply at the current rates of withdrawal so that the addition of other users must necessarily deplete the supply of existing users. Jarvis v. State Land Dept. and City of Tucson, 106 Ariz. 506, 479 P.2d 169 (1970).