A cura di @MBfacundo.

In questo lungo reportage del New York Times si racconta la storia di come, grazie a costi bassi e poche regolamentazioni riguardo l’estrazione di acqua, una valle remota dell’Arizona stia vivendo un boom dell’agricoltura industriale, a scapito però della fornitura idrica dei residenti.

Most groundwater rights in Arizona are still based on the frontier legal doctrine of “reasonable use,” which holds that a landowner retains the right to pump as much water as he or she pleases, so long as it’s put to a “reasonable use” such as farming. [..] For valley farmers, growing high-water crops like alfalfa and nuts, this often meant about 2,000 gallons, roughly the capacity of a tanker truck, every minute, 24 hours a day, with only intermittent breaks for several months. In 2017 alone, one farm pumped 22 billion gallons, nearly double the volume of bottled water sold in the United States annually.

Immagine da Wikimedia.