How will Arizona deal with Colorado River shortages? Cities need a 'Plan B,' expert says
BOULDER, Colo. — Kathryn Sorensen likes to compare the options for finding water rights in central Arizona with shopping for clothes. Some options, such as tearing out turf, are like thrifting: cheap but a little picked over. Others, like desalination, are like buying a tiny designer handbag, expensive and ultimately limited in its capacity. And then there are other options, which might involve buying or borrowing other people's clothes, and those options involve politics.
Sorensen, director of Arizona State University's Kyl Center for Water Policy, spoke June 5 to an audience of water managers, scientists and tribal leaders at the 45th annual Colorado Law Conference on Natural Resources in Boulder, Colorado. She laid out how cities and developers are struggling for more limited water resources in the area of the Colorado River Basin most vulnerable to water cuts: central Arizona.
'If cuts become deep enough, and there's clearly a chance that will happen, I want to say in no uncertain terms, I am extraordinarily concerned that we will hit critical levels,' Sorensen said in an interview. 'There are cities that rely on that (water) directly, and we need to make sure that those cities have a Plan B.'
The Colorado River, which provides 40% of water for Phoenix, along with most of Arizona's largest cities, is experiencing low flows unprecedented in U.S. history. The federal government declared the first official shortage on the river in 2021. Maricopa, Pima and Pinal counties were the first to take serious cuts under an agreement struck decades ago to secure support for the Central Arizona Project Canal.
So far, those cuts have dried up farms in Pinal County, but most cities and tribes have stayed wet, in part because the Gila River Indian Community volunteered to conserve some of its water in Lake Mead.
That arrangement does not guarantee water after 2025, and the Colorado River Basin states are stalled in negotiations to define guidelines for how to manage shortage on a larger scale after 2026.
A drier future: Worsening climate outlooks raise the stakes for an agreement on the Colorado River
In the long term, scientists expect climate change to continue drying the river basin, leading to low flows. Just this year, flows into Lake Powell, used to measure the river's natural water supply, are expected to be roughly half of normal, and even that 'normal' is lower than it once was in the 20th century.
'Our current climate trajectory is beyond awful,' said Brad Udall, a water and climate research scientist at Colorado State University, speaking at the same event on June 5.
As new water-using developments and industries move into the Phoenix area, water managers are examining their options for how to avoid sharp consequences, Sorensen said. Cities like Buckeye could lose the majority of their Colorado River water.
Some cities have immediate back-ups to fill holes left by Colorado River shortages. Phoenix has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on a pipeline to bring water from the Salt and Verde rivers to parts of the city that rely entirely on the Colorado. Tucson can rely on groundwater in the short term to cover its losses, but those aquifers are limited in the long run and don't provide a lasting, sustainable solution. Sorensen worries about municipalities that don't have those kinds of options.
Water users in central Arizona are competing to find supplies that can provide them with assured water for a hundred years, a requirement in Arizona law, given diminished deliveries from the Colorado River, Sorensen said, and cities and developers are constantly scrambling to get entitlements to water to meet that requirement.
The first and cheapest option in stretching water supplies is conservation, Sorensen said. Since 1978, the portion of Phoenix single-family homes that use lush landscaping like lawns has plummeted from nearly 80% to around 20%, a result of intentionally increased water rates. Nonetheless, Sorensen said cities have already conserved a lot of water, and conserving more may see diminishing returns.
The next-easiest option is for cities to lease water from other entities in central Arizona. The Phoenix area hosts a busy informal market for water leases, where entities with water rent out it out to those in need. The Salt River Pima–Maricopa Indian Community, for instance, leased out all of its Colorado River water in 2021.
By contrast, Chandler leased half of its Colorado River water from other parties in that year, according to the Kyl Center (leases are not inherently more vulnerable to cuts in the short term, but need to be renewed or replaced in the long term). But, as Sorensen pointed out, leasing depends on how willing an entity, usually a tribe, is to lend its water for a long time.
'They are sovereign nations," she said. "It is their choice.'
Water for tech: 'A thirsty operation': TSMC plant arrives amid water doubts, but Phoenix isn't worried
Cities and other water users can also rely on long-term storage credits, meaning they get to pump groundwater that other entities have saved underground. That option is a favorite for data centers, Sorensen said, which sometimes must purchase some of their own water supplies instead of relying on municipalities. Still, that option is usually a 'last resort,' Sorensen said, as the water is nonrenewable, so once entities pump it they need to go out and find another long-term water source.
All of these options involve shuffling the amount of Colorado River water already being delivered to the Phoenix and Tucson areas, but what about other sources? Cities in central Arizona are looking there too. A coalition of local governments is looking to build new storage on the Salt and Verde rivers, which could bring more water to the Phoenix area, but that project may not be completed until 2040.
There is one option that may not require any infrastructure and could provide access to a massive chunk of Arizona's Colorado River water: leasing or buying agricultural water from the farms in the Colorado River Valley in the western part of the state. Together, the tribes of the Colorado River Valley and farmers in Yuma County hold rights to hundreds of thousands of acre feet of water that, unlike central Arizona's current water supply, is much safer from water cuts administered by the federal government.
The idea is controversial, politically fraught, and potentially so lucrative that it has drawn the attention of private equity firms.
'You see private equity purchasing farms for the purchase of selling that water,' Sorensen said.
Only one of these transfers has occurred to date, in which a private equity firm called Greenstone bought farmland in La Paz County and sold the farms' water entitlements to Queen Creek for $24 million in 2023. Local officials in western Arizona fumed about the sale, which dried almost 500 acres of farmland, worrying that it would lead to weaker local agricultural communities.
Since then, the Colorado River Indian Tribes, which hold Arizona's largest and highest-priority Colorado River entitlements, have received congressional approval to lease some of their water to off-reservation users, though they haven't moved to do so.
Rural shortages: It's not just big alfalfa farms. La Paz residents fear groundwater grab by big cities
In a May interview, CAP board president Terry Goddard said he had recently visited Yuma and wanted to open discussions about farmers there sharing water with central Arizona users. Goddard said cuts in central Arizona were getting down to the bone, and it was unacceptable to dry out the tribes and critical industries in the state's most populous region. So far, he said those discussions haven't happened.
Presenting a slide titled, 'The future of Ag to Urban Transfers,' Sorensen wondered aloud whether those arrangements would happen in the future, calling them a 'big maybe.'
Farms account for at least three quarters of human water consumption in the lower Colorado River Basin, according to Brian Richter, a researcher and president of Sustainable Water. As cities look to sustain themselves on a diminishing piece of the Colorado River, Phoenix-based water consultant and attorney Peter Culp said in another presentation, conversations about the river often pit the two sectors against one another.
Culp runs a nonprofit bank, Blue Commons, that provides low-interest loans to farmers and tribes to build water conservation infrastructure. The bank is designed to give farmers an alternative to selling their farms to private equity firms like Greenstone by making farming more financially feasible and providing financing that doesn't ultimately lead back to Wall Street investors.
Having grown up in a farming community, Culp said he sees the transfer of water and money from farms to cities as a symptom of a deeper, larger economic shift in the United States and the West.
'We have spent the last hundred years engaged in an extremely effective project of resource extraction and wealth extraction that has systematically moved wealth from the rural parts of this country … into a core,' Culp said. 'Rural America is not doing great, folks.'
Moving forward, Culp said farmers and cities can change their view on ag-to-urban water transfers as an opportunity for mutual benefit. Cities can invest in rural economies, and in return, farmers can conserve water and support cities.
Want more stories like this? Sign up for AZ Climate, The Republic's free weekly environment newsletter.
Though not responding to Culp's remarks, Sorensen viewed the movement in economic activity as more natural.
'People move towards economic opportunity, and some people may wish that were different," she said. "It's not, and it never has been."
Regardless of what happens, Sorensen said in her presentation, water is bound to get more expensive. Sorensen compared Arizona's water to Bitcoin:
'If you didn't buy it already, it's probably too late,' Sorensen said. 'But on the other hand, maybe it's like Bitcoin in that the price just keeps going up and up, and you've got to buy now.'
With values like that, the desalination of brackish groundwater of Pacific Ocean water in neighboring entities — the tiny designer purse in Sorensen's shopping metaphor — could become realistic, Sorensen said.
'The market is tough, especially in the face of Colorado River shortages, so (the tiny purse) might be what we have to turn to,' Sorensen said.
Austin Corona covers environmental issues for The Arizona Republic and azcentral. Send tips or questions to austin.corona@arizonarepublic.com.
Environmental coverage on azcentral.com and in The Arizona Republic is supported by a grant from the Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust.
Follow The Republic environmental reporting team at environment.azcentral.com and @azcenvironment on Facebook and Instagram.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Colorado River cuts push central Arizona to seek water alternatives
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
How will Arizona deal with Colorado River shortages? Cities need a 'Plan B,' expert says
BOULDER, Colo. — Kathryn Sorensen likes to compare the options for finding water rights in central Arizona with shopping for clothes. Some options, such as tearing out turf, are like thrifting: cheap but a little picked over. Others, like desalination, are like buying a tiny designer handbag, expensive and ultimately limited in its capacity. And then there are other options, which might involve buying or borrowing other people's clothes, and those options involve politics. Sorensen, director of Arizona State University's Kyl Center for Water Policy, spoke June 5 to an audience of water managers, scientists and tribal leaders at the 45th annual Colorado Law Conference on Natural Resources in Boulder, Colorado. She laid out how cities and developers are struggling for more limited water resources in the area of the Colorado River Basin most vulnerable to water cuts: central Arizona. 'If cuts become deep enough, and there's clearly a chance that will happen, I want to say in no uncertain terms, I am extraordinarily concerned that we will hit critical levels,' Sorensen said in an interview. 'There are cities that rely on that (water) directly, and we need to make sure that those cities have a Plan B.' The Colorado River, which provides 40% of water for Phoenix, along with most of Arizona's largest cities, is experiencing low flows unprecedented in U.S. history. The federal government declared the first official shortage on the river in 2021. Maricopa, Pima and Pinal counties were the first to take serious cuts under an agreement struck decades ago to secure support for the Central Arizona Project Canal. So far, those cuts have dried up farms in Pinal County, but most cities and tribes have stayed wet, in part because the Gila River Indian Community volunteered to conserve some of its water in Lake Mead. That arrangement does not guarantee water after 2025, and the Colorado River Basin states are stalled in negotiations to define guidelines for how to manage shortage on a larger scale after 2026. A drier future: Worsening climate outlooks raise the stakes for an agreement on the Colorado River In the long term, scientists expect climate change to continue drying the river basin, leading to low flows. Just this year, flows into Lake Powell, used to measure the river's natural water supply, are expected to be roughly half of normal, and even that 'normal' is lower than it once was in the 20th century. 'Our current climate trajectory is beyond awful,' said Brad Udall, a water and climate research scientist at Colorado State University, speaking at the same event on June 5. As new water-using developments and industries move into the Phoenix area, water managers are examining their options for how to avoid sharp consequences, Sorensen said. Cities like Buckeye could lose the majority of their Colorado River water. Some cities have immediate back-ups to fill holes left by Colorado River shortages. Phoenix has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on a pipeline to bring water from the Salt and Verde rivers to parts of the city that rely entirely on the Colorado. Tucson can rely on groundwater in the short term to cover its losses, but those aquifers are limited in the long run and don't provide a lasting, sustainable solution. Sorensen worries about municipalities that don't have those kinds of options. Water users in central Arizona are competing to find supplies that can provide them with assured water for a hundred years, a requirement in Arizona law, given diminished deliveries from the Colorado River, Sorensen said, and cities and developers are constantly scrambling to get entitlements to water to meet that requirement. The first and cheapest option in stretching water supplies is conservation, Sorensen said. Since 1978, the portion of Phoenix single-family homes that use lush landscaping like lawns has plummeted from nearly 80% to around 20%, a result of intentionally increased water rates. Nonetheless, Sorensen said cities have already conserved a lot of water, and conserving more may see diminishing returns. The next-easiest option is for cities to lease water from other entities in central Arizona. The Phoenix area hosts a busy informal market for water leases, where entities with water rent out it out to those in need. The Salt River Pima–Maricopa Indian Community, for instance, leased out all of its Colorado River water in 2021. By contrast, Chandler leased half of its Colorado River water from other parties in that year, according to the Kyl Center (leases are not inherently more vulnerable to cuts in the short term, but need to be renewed or replaced in the long term). But, as Sorensen pointed out, leasing depends on how willing an entity, usually a tribe, is to lend its water for a long time. 'They are sovereign nations," she said. "It is their choice.' Water for tech: 'A thirsty operation': TSMC plant arrives amid water doubts, but Phoenix isn't worried Cities and other water users can also rely on long-term storage credits, meaning they get to pump groundwater that other entities have saved underground. That option is a favorite for data centers, Sorensen said, which sometimes must purchase some of their own water supplies instead of relying on municipalities. Still, that option is usually a 'last resort,' Sorensen said, as the water is nonrenewable, so once entities pump it they need to go out and find another long-term water source. All of these options involve shuffling the amount of Colorado River water already being delivered to the Phoenix and Tucson areas, but what about other sources? Cities in central Arizona are looking there too. A coalition of local governments is looking to build new storage on the Salt and Verde rivers, which could bring more water to the Phoenix area, but that project may not be completed until 2040. There is one option that may not require any infrastructure and could provide access to a massive chunk of Arizona's Colorado River water: leasing or buying agricultural water from the farms in the Colorado River Valley in the western part of the state. Together, the tribes of the Colorado River Valley and farmers in Yuma County hold rights to hundreds of thousands of acre feet of water that, unlike central Arizona's current water supply, is much safer from water cuts administered by the federal government. The idea is controversial, politically fraught, and potentially so lucrative that it has drawn the attention of private equity firms. 'You see private equity purchasing farms for the purchase of selling that water,' Sorensen said. Only one of these transfers has occurred to date, in which a private equity firm called Greenstone bought farmland in La Paz County and sold the farms' water entitlements to Queen Creek for $24 million in 2023. Local officials in western Arizona fumed about the sale, which dried almost 500 acres of farmland, worrying that it would lead to weaker local agricultural communities. Since then, the Colorado River Indian Tribes, which hold Arizona's largest and highest-priority Colorado River entitlements, have received congressional approval to lease some of their water to off-reservation users, though they haven't moved to do so. Rural shortages: It's not just big alfalfa farms. La Paz residents fear groundwater grab by big cities In a May interview, CAP board president Terry Goddard said he had recently visited Yuma and wanted to open discussions about farmers there sharing water with central Arizona users. Goddard said cuts in central Arizona were getting down to the bone, and it was unacceptable to dry out the tribes and critical industries in the state's most populous region. So far, he said those discussions haven't happened. Presenting a slide titled, 'The future of Ag to Urban Transfers,' Sorensen wondered aloud whether those arrangements would happen in the future, calling them a 'big maybe.' Farms account for at least three quarters of human water consumption in the lower Colorado River Basin, according to Brian Richter, a researcher and president of Sustainable Water. As cities look to sustain themselves on a diminishing piece of the Colorado River, Phoenix-based water consultant and attorney Peter Culp said in another presentation, conversations about the river often pit the two sectors against one another. Culp runs a nonprofit bank, Blue Commons, that provides low-interest loans to farmers and tribes to build water conservation infrastructure. The bank is designed to give farmers an alternative to selling their farms to private equity firms like Greenstone by making farming more financially feasible and providing financing that doesn't ultimately lead back to Wall Street investors. Having grown up in a farming community, Culp said he sees the transfer of water and money from farms to cities as a symptom of a deeper, larger economic shift in the United States and the West. 'We have spent the last hundred years engaged in an extremely effective project of resource extraction and wealth extraction that has systematically moved wealth from the rural parts of this country … into a core,' Culp said. 'Rural America is not doing great, folks.' Moving forward, Culp said farmers and cities can change their view on ag-to-urban water transfers as an opportunity for mutual benefit. Cities can invest in rural economies, and in return, farmers can conserve water and support cities. Want more stories like this? Sign up for AZ Climate, The Republic's free weekly environment newsletter. Though not responding to Culp's remarks, Sorensen viewed the movement in economic activity as more natural. 'People move towards economic opportunity, and some people may wish that were different," she said. "It's not, and it never has been." Regardless of what happens, Sorensen said in her presentation, water is bound to get more expensive. Sorensen compared Arizona's water to Bitcoin: 'If you didn't buy it already, it's probably too late,' Sorensen said. 'But on the other hand, maybe it's like Bitcoin in that the price just keeps going up and up, and you've got to buy now.' With values like that, the desalination of brackish groundwater of Pacific Ocean water in neighboring entities — the tiny designer purse in Sorensen's shopping metaphor — could become realistic, Sorensen said. 'The market is tough, especially in the face of Colorado River shortages, so (the tiny purse) might be what we have to turn to,' Sorensen said. Austin Corona covers environmental issues for The Arizona Republic and azcentral. Send tips or questions to Environmental coverage on and in The Arizona Republic is supported by a grant from the Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust. Follow The Republic environmental reporting team at and @azcenvironment on Facebook and Instagram. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Colorado River cuts push central Arizona to seek water alternatives
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
Protesters and journalists are barred from the outside of immigration court. Is it legal?
Activists and journalists gathered outside a federal immigration court in late May to do what they always do. The activists wanted to help migrants attending hearings know their legal rights, chastise immigration officers and show resistance to deportation efforts. Reporters wanted to bear witness, interview sources and share stories with the world about what was happening. Usually, assembling outside a court to protest, observe or report would be no problem. But May 21, private security told photojournalists and activists to leave the property. Phoenix police issued the same warning to activists May 28, and said they could get cited for trespassing — a criminal violation. By early June, a rope was installed to keep the public off the property, and "No Trespassing" signs were installed. That's because the immigration court isn't in a federal facility — it's in a private office building. Police officers said the landlord of the building had asked for people to leave if they did not have immediate business on the property. Advocates like Ricardo Reyes, the lead Arizona organizer for Common Defense, a veterans organization that defends migrants, were confused. He wondered: Since the courthouse is taxpayer funded, shouldn't the taxpaying public be given access and allowed to assemble outside? As of June 3, Phoenix police said the landlord had called three times to complain about trespassers but that no citations were issued. The effects of the warnings, however, were immediate. The advocates left the property and moved to a sidewalk along Van Buren Street. It was on the north side of the building, away from the entrance, which made connecting with migrants impossible. Activists continued to walk onto the private plaza, though, particularly when ICE made arrests. Reporters attending the hearings continued without restriction. But photographers and videographers, who aren't allowed in immigration courtrooms anyway, took to the sidewalk like the activists. Their ability to capture images of individuals entering the building was blocked. The First Amendment protects the public's right to assemble and the press's ability to report the news. But experts say the legal rights in this circumstance are extremely foggy. The fact the government doesn't own the land brings a host of complications. Plus, the right of the public to access immigration hearings isn't clear cut. "Right now, it's not all that clear because of the oddity of how this is all managed. Where the government's rights take over versus the landlord's rights, versus the other tenants' rights," Gregg Leslie, executive director of Arizona State University's First Amendment Clinic, said. Sign up for The Republic's American Border newsletter to get the latest immigration news every Thursday. The public's right to be somewhere, called "right of access," depends largely on whether land is public or private, Leslie said. The difficulty in this situation is that the government courtroom is on the third floor of a privately owned building with other tenants. While the public has a right to public land, that right doesn't exist on private land. But it can get more complex. "If it's private land owned for public access, there are certain allowances for there being greater public access to it," Leslie said. To that end, Leslie said it was "hard to believe" the plaza outside the building would be treated as private property, considering the public must have permission to walk through it on the way to court. Lease agreements might spell out how such circumstances should play out, Leslie said. The Arizona Republic requested but has not obtained the lease agreement. When The Republic called the Phoenix Immigration Court, the operator said she was not authorized to answer the question and hung up on the reporter. The U.S. Justice Department, the agency that houses immigration courts, directed questions from The Republic about why the court was inside a private building to the General Services Administration. The GSA, which manages federal government leases, said the government leases private property when "leasing is the only practical answer to meeting Federal space needs." In other words, leases are used when the existing federal property doesn't have space. In Phoenix, the federal buildings are downtown at 1st Avenue and Monroe Street, and 5th Avenue and Washington Street. The leasing company, Transwestern Real Estate Services, did not respond to questions from The Republic. Further clouding the public's ability to understand their rights are different interpretations for different parts of the building. Someone's right to be in the plaza versus the lobby or the third floor all varies depending on whether the space is considered "a traditional public forum," Leslie said. That means an area traditionally open to political speech and debate. Another challenge to the public's right to assemble or report at immigration court is there is no established First Amendment-based right of access, Leslie said. A typical federal courtroom is considered an Article III Court, meaning it was established under Article 3 of the U.S. Constitution and is thus subject to the First Amendment. "There is a right of access to those courts. You have a right to be there. You can be shut out, but (the government) has to overcome your presumption of a right to be there," Leslie said. But immigration courts, by contrast, are administrative. They're created by law and the same level of protections aren't applied. "Right after 9/11, there were fights over whether immigration courts had to be open, and two of the federal circuits came out differently, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear it," Leslie said. That lack of resolution has left the legal community in limbo. ASU's First Amendment Clinic is currently working on guidance trying to clarify what rights do and do not apply to immigration court. At the end of May, immigrants in Phoenix were seeing the government dismiss their case, only to turn around and immediately arrest them again — this time using expedited removal. That's a process that allows for deportation without a hearing. Advocates thought migrants deserved a warning, and went to offer help. "The people that are showing up are showing up in good faith. They have no idea they might get picked up by ICE as soon as their hearing is over, and they're not going to be able ... to have their families waiting for them at home," Reyes from Common Defense said. His group encouraged migrants to get attorneys, and told them about options such as requesting an extension for their case, or an appeal if their case was dismissed. The group also offered to accompany individuals, some of whom Reyes said were scared. But none of that was possible, he said, when they were shuffled to the sidewalk away from the building entrance. Reporters, including those at The Arizona Republic, have attended immigration court hearings intermittently for years as part of ongoing news coverage. The coverage serves myriad purposes, such as showing the public how government is carrying out President Donald Trump's deportation agenda. The information is meant to equip the public so they can make informed decisions. Disallowing photo and video reporters on-site has hindered the ability to show everything that's happening there. Taylor Seely is a First Amendment Reporting Fellow at The Arizona Republic / Do you have a story about the government infringing on your First Amendment rights? Reach her at tseely@ or by phone at 480-476-6116. Seely's role is funded through a collaboration between the Freedom Forum and Journalism Funding Partners. Funders do not provide editorial input. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Reporters, protesters barred from outside of Arizona immigration court
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Yahoo
Sorensen announces possible growth – not cuts – for the Peoria Ag Lab
PEORIA, Ill. (WMBD) — U.S. Rep. Eric Sorensen said the Ag Lab, instead of being shuttered, could actually see some growth. The release of next year's Agricultural Utilization Research budget proposal includes a potential growth for the National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research, more commonly known as the Ag Lab, for 'research expansion,' the congressman said in a news release. Terminated Peoria Ag Lab employees could return to work following a ruling 'When I heard this facility might be at risk, I made it a priority to make sure the administration and USDA leadership understood the value of this world-class research center. I'm proud to say our efforts paid off,' said the Rockford Democrat. 'We made our case loud and clear. I want to thank every researcher, every advocate, and every voice who spoke up. 'The work being done in this facility supports farmers, strengthens our food systems, and helps fight climate change. I'm proud to have stood with our community to show how important the NCAUR is—not just to Peoria, but to our entire nation' he said. Amid cuts being handed down by the Trump administration, fears rolled in about those cuts affecting the Ag Lab, said Ethan Roberts, the president of AFGE Local 3247, which is the union that represents the rank and file at the facility. 'The silence from USDA leadership created a culture of fear, driving away talented staff. But when we reached out to our stakeholders—especially the farming community—their support was overwhelming and helped put NCAUR and ARS back on the map,' he said. 'We're grateful to everyone who stood with us to protect the vital research we do for farmers and food safety.' Sorensen says he has been a 'fierce advocate' for the lab and has even outlined the lab's contributions to not only agriculture but also the regional economy. The lab has hundreds of employees and even supports local and global agricultural research and is the largest federal employer in the region, he said. The proposed budget would not just protect those hundreds of jobs but would also highlight their cutting-edge research, he said. Final funding decisions will be made by Congress, and Sorensen will continue to 'monitor the process and fight to make sure the Peoria Ag Lab remains fully protected,' he said. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
