Given where you are, and the recent events, I'd be asking questions about what mucking about with the water table is doing for the stability of the land around there, too. It probably won't trigger anything, I grant you, but it can't be helping things, either.

What are they growing around there, anyway? Does the crop actually need that much water?

As you point out, the cost of cleanup needs to be considered part of the cost of doing business. This is part of what carbon pricing is going to be attempting to do here in Australia (and it's part of why the big polluters here are bitching non-stop about it). The point is, at present the cost is spread out over the wider community, which means the polluters can ignore it and pretend it doesn't have to be paid at all.