Posted on 01/10/2025 3:03:53 AM PST by Jonty30
Water prices are soaring in California’s Central Valley, where a quarter of the nation’s food is grown. As the West Coast’s megadrought worsens, one farming company has long been scrutinized for its outsize role in the arid region’s water supply.
Wonderful, the closely held company owned by billionaires Stewart and Lynda Resnick, can buy up huge amounts of water whenever it needs more. Most of the Resnicks’ water comes from long-term contracts and other water from land rights they have from the farms they own. Around 9% of the total water used by Wonderful is bought out on the open water market. While that’s not a huge amount of the water it uses, the company can outspend pretty much every other farmer in the region, which can influence water prices.
“Like all farmers, we occasionally need to purchase water for our crops,” a spokesperson for the Wonderful Co. said. “However, we prioritize water rights when purchasing farmland, thus most of our supply is not purchased on the water market. Based on this, we do not believe we have enough purchasing power to impact water prices.”
The water that the Resnicks use gets stored underground initially before the water is delivered to the roots of the Resnicks’ pistachios, almonds and pomegranate orchards. Specifically, it is stored in the Kern Water Bank, the most valuable water resource in a region critical to America’s fresh food supply. The water bank, which is a public-private partnership in which the Resnicks own a 57% stake, is a 32-square-mile recharge basin—which looks like floodlands from the street that essentially stores up to 1.5 million acre-feet of water (or 500 billion gallons) underground.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
Bkmk
“ How many houses burned down because of this arrangement?”
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Probably none. 3 1/2 year old article.
Why? Have they given up ownership of the water since?
“How many houses burned down because of this arrangement”
None.
“Wonderful, the closely held company owned by billionaires Stewart and Lynda Resnick”
They make damn good pistachios, so can’t blame them for wanting to control their water access.
I’m not prepared to say that.
In 2024, Stewart Resnick gave $100,000 to the Democratic Majority for Israel and approximately $785,000 to Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Lynda Resnick also donated approximately $785,000 to the DCCC.
Stewart and Lynda Resnick - mostly Dem donors
https://revealnews.org/wp-content/uploads/legacy-images/resnick/resnick_donations.html
Stewart and Lynda Resnick are philanthropists who have donated millions of dollars to academic institutions, climate change initiatives, and other causes.
Notable donations
Lynda and Stewart Resnick Center for Agricultural Innovation at UC Davis
A $50 million gift in 2022 established this center to support research in agriculture and environmental sustainability. The center will focus on developing technologies to make crops more resilient, increasing access to nutritious food, and more.
Caltech sustainability center
A $750 million gift in 2019 funded sustainability research at Caltech. This was the largest donation in the field at the time. (a request for them to donate to CalTech by their grandkids)
Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital
Named after Stewart and Lynda Resnick in honor of their involvement.
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
A $45 million gift in 2008 funded the construction of a new exhibition pavilion.
Hammer Museum
A $30 million gift in 2018 helped pay for a renovation and expansion project.
They are Jewish.
They physically take control of and “bank” the water that they BUY (with their own money) into their own “storage capacity”. They don’t send it out to the ocean. Perhaps you should look to what the California government has done (and has not done) with California’s water resources. Perhaps that government should consider the age-old wisdom of collecting water when it’s plentiful to actually have it readily available when it’s needed.
Current perceptions are that the Democrat-run state of CA has screwed up in a huge way and allowed catastrophic damage.
Solution? Find a billionaire to blame.
So, if I own the water supply and I only use it for myself, you are going to absolve me of any possible role that I might have played in why others might not have had enough water for themselves to save their homes?
Why are these billionaires exempt, but people like Bill Gates are not when we share concerns about his activities?
The state should build dams to capture the water that falls from the sky. Currently the state insists that this water should just run into the ocean and be lost.
The state has a responsibility to manage its resources.
The farmers have a responsibility to manage their resources.
I see the farmers doing what they would be expected to do.
I see the state failing completely.
Blaming billionaires is just an easy way out.
None! All of this including farmers water practices is due to the insane policies of the left in control of CA.
I’m glad that Bill Gates is absolved of making billions on the vaxxines.
While I can respect the free market, what the Resnicks did was strike a deal with the government to let them own most of the water and the competing farmers are at a disadvantage. This is bonified fascism and how it works. Private enterprise strikes a deal with the government to own their sector of the economy and putting other competitors at a permanent disadvantage.
It’s not the free market that you are trying to defend here, but fascism.
How Many Houses Burned Down because they watered Almond trees?
Dunno, no houses burned down in their area? That water table they purchased can be used by others in the area?
Also, who the ‘Ell cares how much the farmers have in the bank? What a pack of commie trash to bring that into a tragedy like this.
Such water is open to bid. If state wanted it all they had to do was participate. Instead, like all commie trash they pursued DEI crappola.
I just got through season 2 and am part way into season 3 of Goliath. The timing of my binging an older show that directly speaks to this phenomenon (one major farm conspiring to take the largest stake in the water bank and divert its supply to their specific use at the cost of all others), well, it’s kinda creepin’ me out.
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