Then it hits me. On vacation in the south of France, he heard about a farming company called Paramount that needed a buyer for some of its orchards in Kern County. Even for someone with Vidovichs savvy, the depth of this summers drought could be devastating. No rain in five years. So the question before me was how are these guys farming? Ah, he says, so youre the one whos been snooping around. She grabs him by the wrist, and they make a beeline for the convention hall door. The highway runs two lanes here, three lanes there, through miles of agriculture broken every 20 minutes by fast food, gas station, and cheap motel. This is only $3? But for a lot of workers, bringing that big fat burrito from home still makes sense., I had seen what J.G. It was good for the bottom line. At the plant, we built our gyms, and we have stretching and walking activities. Since then, his Sandridge Partners has accumulated ownership or control of thousands of acres of farmland across the Central Valley 123,424 in Kings County alone, per ParcelQuest, focusing on land with secure surface water rights or where groundwater is abundant. The plastic unfurls across the grove like a giant roll of Saran Wrap. Arax: So because there is no groundwater out in Lost Hills, they came up with this idea of pumping groundwater from 40, 50 miles away. Giant pincers manned by a single worker grab the tree by the throat and start shaking. Days Inn or Motel 6. I ask him about his delivery of servicespruning, pesticides, herbicides, fertilizer, waterthat can be calibrated and timed to enable the smallest unit to achieve maximum yield. John Vidovich, the current patriarch of the family business, and his wife Lydia live in an $11.4 million Los Altos Hills home. The tule fog sets down again in the valley. Made of durable plastic, the pipe would be buried four feet below the bottom of the canal, with a foot-deep cement barrier to protect both. I sit in my car and wait in the parking lot. Its been more than a year since the grand opening, and theyre still operating in the red. To the growers, it must feel like a jab in the stomach. Our relatives have been patient. He worries because there isnt enough water now to properly irrigate the almonds, pistachios, and pomegranates. To fix the subsidence, and keep the town dry in the next flood, residents and the state prison are having to pay $10 million in extra taxes. Altogether, Resnick has purchased 300,000 acre-feet of water from farmers and water districtsat a cost of $200 millionto cover his shortfall during the drought. Agriculture in the south valley has extended far beyond the provisions of its one river, the Kern. Four thousand peoplemore than double the number on the highway signlive in town, and three out of every four rely on a payday from Wonderful. Shes done giving big gifts to Los Angeles museums and mental health hospitals that name buildings after her and Stewart. Who would have thought that people would be asking their bartender to fix them a Pomtini? he said. Neighbors dont tell on neighbors.. The crops we grow can only be grown in a few places in the world. The more water he got, the more crops he planted, and the more crops he planted, the more water he needed to plant more crops, and on and on. Lupe excuses herself to prepare dinner. The Sureos gang has tagged the front entrance but otherwise has left the inside unmarked. I cross the Tulare County line heading south into Bakersfield, and there in front of me, for no eye to miss, stands the Wonderful Citrus complex with its four-story storage building designed in the shape of an almighty box of Halo mandarins. The drought is driving prices and shifting business practices. He kept planting more and more trees. In the city of trees, I find a paved road with speed bumps that takes me to the harvest of pistachios. Locals also are nervous about six new pump stations, controlled by Vidovich, that they fear could pump massive amounts of groundwater out of Tulare County, into the California Aqueduct, and down to Southern California. His trees were drinking from the Central Valley Project and the State Water Project, from rivers and irrigation canals and the water bank. Marketplace is a division of MPR's 501 (c)(3). Ron DeSantis isn't returning his calls . The stock is up 33% in the last year and more . Each tree produces 22 pounds of nuts. Boswell II started the Boswell company. Because Lupe had no papers, she followed the coyote for many more miles until they reached a steep pass. As we hop down from the van to inspect the pomegranates on the eve of harvest, Resnick motions to Bernards belly. Either way is a trespass. Once he finished grabbing the flow of the five rivers that ran across the plain, he used his turbine pumps to seize the water beneath the ground. The wide-open middle of California did its lullaby on me again. He saved up a down payment for a raisin ranch west of Fresno, where my father was born in the worst of the Great Depression. I come upon a Wonderful field man in a four-by-four truck who listens to my bewilderment and takes pity. Rain for Rent, the pipes say. I didnt grow up here, but if it wasnt for California, its openness and opportunities, I wouldnt be sitting where Im sitting., No other farmer, not even Gallo, had cornered a market the way Resnick had cornered the growing, buying, processing, and selling of pistachios. The company periodically flies a helicopter over Vidovichs rangelands, its ominous WHOMP-WHOMP-WHOMP frightening cattle already stressed by drought, said dairy and beef farmer Jim Wilson, who leases nearby land from Vidovich. Hilly, wooded and overlooking the bay just south of San Francisco . Its bringing water from the Dudley Ridge Water District in Kings County. This last-ditch water in Lost Hills wont make everything right. STRATFORD Water is the lifeblood in the parched San Joaquin Valley, sustaining endless acres of trees, seeds and pastures that feed a hungry nation. We are sensitive to that. Are big banks following through on their climate pledges? This is gamblers ground unlike any other in California, and as I drive from hill to dale, examining each orchard, my head spins. He remade himself into a graduate of the UCLA law school, a cleaner of Los Angeles buildings, a vendor of security alarms, a seller of flowers in a pot, a minter of Elvis plates and Princess Diana dolls, a bottler of Fiji Island water, a farmer of San Joaquin Valley dirt. Hes a decent guy making $216,000 a year who doesnt pretend that he isnt beholden to Wonderful. A public resource had been privatized for the purpose of growing tens of thousands of acres of nuts, he charged. It takes a life every six seconds. Fallowing the farm until the footprint gets smaller and smaller. Thats why he built the pipeline. Even if it leaked, it would simply add water to the canal, Vidovich insists. My old well cant compete with his new wells. I follow one of the engines of harvest as it rolls into an orchard like a tank. The winter goes down as one of the wettest in recorded history. Bernards eyes are fixed straight ahead. When Lynda learned that half the students receiving thousands of dollars in company scholarships were dropping out of school, she wasnt deterred. Recommended for you Videos 4:28. The way the Bobcat goes full steam, it takes but a few seconds of splendid violence to uproot a tree. The Sotos made a name for themselves in Lost Hills by taking their taco trucks into the agricultural fields. Because when we dont manage it, they end up with severe chronic health issues and amputated limbs., Anzaldo is a man wired for solemn, but he does manage to smile once during lunch, when talking about the 1,150 workers whove earned bonuses of up to $500 for losing a collective 14,000 pounds in two years. The project would take five days to completewhen the canal wasnt in use. Sugar kills, she tells them. The construction of the pipeline forced the irrigation districts hand, launching a lawsuit to halt Angiolas water exports at one point to the tune of 30,000 acre-feet annually. Hes got another meeting to attend. The State Water Project, for the first time in six years, delivers surplus flows. A pump is shooting water out of the canal and into the Rain for Rent pipes. John Vidovich lives in Los Altos, CA; previous city include San Jose CA. Today, at 81, his money is all but gone, and South African conservationist John Hume is throwing in the towel . Has the San Joaquin Valley reached its Chinatown moment? How will money and power reshape this desiccated landscape? California is free to return to its amnesia. We want good groundwater, too., You mean no more pipelines carrying water in the dead of night?, The pipeline. He stammers a bit. I did not name the town, Lynda says. Conceived by Lynda, it cost one fortune to build and a second fortune to light up. All Rights Reserved. They were hardly the first rich people to use patronage to try to wheedle a citizenry toward their idea of a better life. Its known as a census-designated place, which is another way of saying that Kern County has every reason to neglect it. Hes serious about taking water out of this valley, farmer Milt Pace, who once partnered with Vidovich, told The Bakersfield Californian. I applaud, too. What if I failed? He makes $10.50 an hour, and the company provides him with a 401(k) plan and medical insurance. They knew little about the company except it was selling its keepsakes for five times the amount Teleflora was. I had no idea what I wanted to do, but I reached a moment in my life where I had to give back in a meaningful way, she tells the camera. The bureau happened to be my house in northwest Fresno. But this outwardly unassuming multimillionaire has become a lightning rod of controversy. The water will be stripped from the land and sold to developers of new towns both here and over the mountain. To manage the disease. Resnick picks up the water in Dudley Ridge, Vidovich says. On the south end stands the Wonderful Community Center, where residents are urged to attend thrice-weekly Zumba and core-training sessions, healthy cooking classes, and weekend cultural outings featuring the likes of Americas Premier Latino Dance Company. You sure this isnt 18 tons an acre? he says, goading. Already, they are paying $69 a month to the local utility district. He was going to Vegas, hanging out with his own Damon Runyon characters, and making plans to get even bigger. Yes, the pipeline belongs to Resnick. I had in mind a magazine profile on Stewart, the Nut King. She splits her time between Palo Alto and Inverness, and in her spare time likes wildlife photography, swimming, skiing and backpacking. It also means giving back.. A lot of it is undocumented and they are in these sort of company towns that you describe that are maybe even more sort of dedicated to the company than most. For generations, the company has supplied steady work for Kings County families and has been an integral part of the regions identity, helping to build a community park, the YMCA, Corcoran District Hospital and the high school football stadium. But theres no denying his desperation. They dumped their stolen car into the canals black waters and got away with murder for the next 32 years. Somehow, it made its way to Lynda. They were pushing plates, costume jewelry, perfume, and model cars. Thats on top of managing 100,000 acres of farmland and sitting in on Valley-based water boards. Each time I called, his secretary hung up the phone. The believer and the skeptic do their tussle inside my head. Stewart Resnick is the biggest farmer in the United States, a fact he has tried to keep hidden while he has shaped what we eat, transformed Californias landscape, and ruled entire towns. Who anticipates that you cant fill a water bank for six or seven years?, Come on, I say. Over the years, they had donated large sums of money to political campaigns, and some of it went to Republicans who had pledged to prop up California agriculture. Her brother-in-law was killed recently in a car crash along Highway 46. It exists as one thing they can almost rationalize out in the fields. Lisa M. Krieger is a Bay Area News Group science writer for The Mercury News and East Bay Times, covering research, scientific policy and environmental news from Stanford University, the University of California, NASA-Ames, U.S. Geological Survey and other Bay Area-based research facilities. Vidovich claims that he was . Falling groundwater levels are stressing their wells. So everybody should have it, right? But she cannot remember the last time she or Manuel or their children drank it. Vidovich did not immediately respond . What happens to them if Wonderful downsizes? He purchased his first 640-acre section in the late 1970s and kept adding more sections of almonds, pistachios, pomegranates, and citrus until he stretched the lines of agriculture like no Californian before him. To find its flow, Id have to go looking in a thousand irrigation ditches in the fields beyond. The sober man died. Hes headed to the Wonderful plant, 13 miles north of Lost Hills, to drop off his load. We are horrified by the lack of regard for both neighbor and nature, and we hope that the community will accept our deepest and most sincere apologies and find it in their hearts to forgive us. They pledge to donate the 380 acres to charity. When he was told there were fields upon fields, he did not believe there could be this many fields. Lynda is also mapping out a farm-to-food program where students will grow fruits, vegetables, and grains on a plot of village land. And state groundwater regulations restrict the drilling of new agricultural wells. I steer past Wasco to the dust-blowing orchards that flank Lost Hills, the densest planting of almonds, pistachios, and pomegranates on earth. After three years of drought, tensions are running high all over rural California. The dispute over the no fly zone was finally resolved by the invention of a netting that Resnick sheathes around his mandarins each spring. Vidovich wrote out a check for the full amount, then went looking for the water to prop up Resnicks monopoly. This drought has brought Stewart to his knees. Its California., Sure. He packed his bags and left his wife and kids. The bowls on her kitchen table are filled with grapes, berries, bananas, and red and green bell peppers. Wonderful has enough water to irrigate its orchards in Lost Hills and park tens of thousands of acre-feet in the water bank. Welcome to San Antonio del Norte, he says. (SJV Water/ Lois Henry) A large water pipeline being built near Lemoore in Kings County is raising eyebrows as much for its possible uses as for the name associated with its construction John Vidovich. Boswell had tried to tear apart a copy of The King of California when his secretary asked if he might autograph it. The piece, I was told, had left Lynda embarrassed and fuming. Thats changing. Youve read the 0 free articles available to you. Im sure I knew we had a pipeline in there. How much bigger can agriculture get. Digging in was its own wisdom, he discovered. Lupe gave birth to two daughters, U.S. citizens, who are now 11 and 6. The making of a billionaire over the next half-century was a series of dots that connected in the California sunshine. Other billionaires getting behind Biden are investor Haim Saban, worth $2.9 billion, DreamWorks co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg, worth $1 billion, and Signum Global Advisors founder Charles Myers whose net worth is unknown. They do that because they love it., A POM craze followed. Yet the Resnick pipeline is doing just that. The designers at the Mint made a porcelain doll with a tiny replica outfit so precise that it had to be hand-beaded with 2,000 fake pearls. I know I cant do this forever, he says. The nuts are kept there a few more daysany longer and the ants will attack themto complete their drying. Six hundred pistachio growers in blue jeans isnt her usual crowd. It should be right here, but I dont see it. Wanted: an animal-loving billionaire who might consider buying 1,993 threatened white rhinos instead of a new superyacht or a Picasso, or a Picasso onboard a superyacht. As it happened, just down the road, on the other side of the lake bottom, Resnick had captured his own body of water, the Kern Water Bank, and planted millions of nut trees on desert scrub. I walk to another part of the orchard and watch phase two. He knows what I dont know. The people here have traveled too far. We hope you enjoy Finding Lost Hills., The 11-minute film opens with a shot of swirling dust. A member of the commission, on the eve of its demise, told me, Stewart wants to be a benevolent dictator. What if the endless days without rain become endless years? One year later, Vidovich turned his gain from the water sale to Mojave into an almost outright acquisition of land in the Angiola Water District in Tulare County. How can this be? He uses more water than any other person in the West. Being healthy is a choice. Each bush is saddled with more than a hundred pomegranates the size of softballs and baseballs. Welcome to the club. He was in the mood to gamble. Under her rethink agriculture program, the kids will be trained in plant science and irrigation technology, marketing and sales. He had none of his fathers sentimentality. The footprint of agriculture has grown a good deal beyond what the water can cover. Big fish eat the small fish here. The river is nothing if not fickle. Another intrepid California billionaire named John Vidovich, scion of the Vidovich fortune, has a different path forward for the Golden State, one that he's established in his own land and water grabs. This must be the spot the Wonderful field man was describing. What happens to Wonderful? We were asleep at the wheel. On the way out of the market, Pablo buys a case of Pacifico. Vidovich didnt have to wait long for a buyer to come calling. The Mojave Water Agency, a San Bernardino-based water provider. The truth, as always, probably lies somewhere in between. As water users fight over a decreasing amount of water, he said, its just inevitable.. I saw horrible things, Margarita says. And you know why? He wants his fair share, but he wants everybody else to prosper, too.. Not long before, Vidovich was trying to grab water from Resnick, not give it. The region plays an important role in California agriculture but its also ground zero for many of the states most difficult water management problems. He had no intention of farming it, either. While Vidovich owns the surrounding land, Boswells Tulare Lake Canal Company traverses it with a longstanding legal easement established back in 1906, in spidery cursive print, by the long-dead owner of a long-gone ranch. But Vidovich isnt backing down. Bankers and their fair-weather financing exasperated Resnick. The drought?. A few weeks later, I found myself riding up the elevator of a high-rise on the Westside of Los Angeles. The softballs will go to market as whole fruit or as seed pods in a package. The control Resnick exercises inside his $4.5 billion privately held company does relinquish to one person: his wife, Lynda, vice chairman and co-owner, the Pomegranate Queen, as she calls herself. The farmer moved the rain. In a swirl of dust, a worker atop a different machine is blowing the almonds from their spot beneath the trees to the middle of the row. Month after month, she made ends meet on a $1,600 budget. Stewart was the second of their four children, the only boy. What can I say? Its ridiculous, he said. Inside sits a young man named Pablo. This is Lynda.. The curriculum is being created by Noemi Donoso, the chief of education for the Chicago public schools before Lynda recruited her to Wonderful. "Once you have them, you spend a lifetime defending them." No picking of crop agitates the earth like the picking of almonds and pistachios. The fight between the Tulare Lake Canal Company, controlled by the J.G. Resnicks billions rely on his ability to master water, sun, soil, and even bees. And its even worse for the children in Kings County. Once, he came home from school and discovered the family car gone. What? But this can lead to conflict and distrust. I enter an equipment yard where a Wonderful farmhand is standing next to a tractor. No journalist had written a word about his rise as an agricultural giant, how he had turned public water into private water by grabbing control of Californias largest water bank, a project jump-started with $74 million in taxpayer money. They resent howhe sold $73 million worth of water rights to Mojave Water Agency in Southern California. That breaks your agreement with those farmers. Theres no issue with the pipeline.. I cut across Twisselman Road to the pipeline gliding along the aqueduct like a silver snake. He was a big drinker, a big liver who loved the fast life. One of the first things he did with his monopoly was kill the California Pistachio Commission, the industrys marketing group, by yanking his funding. Theres a section stacked with weights and a yoga room with mats on a hardwood floor. He only needed to find groundwater from another basin to replace the state aqueduct water he had just sold. He turns out to be a kindly religious man whose short hair is dyed the black of shoe polish. The great drought is officially over. It was true that agriculture had been selling state project water to cities for two decades. The Iranians dont irrigate their trees. By the decree of Lynda, who once contemplated a bowl of those juicy little seedless mandarins and on the spot named them Cuties, this is now the land of Wonderful. Each square-mile section is divided into blocks, and each block counts a precise number of rows. "Water rights are like democracy," he told Forbes in 1989. But the smaller farmer still uses a pruning shears to make his most important cuts. If I want to know more, I need to talk to Lupes brother, Gustavo, who has worked as an irrigator at Wonderful for five years and knows what the company is planning for the future. This was how a billionaire who needed more water did politics. My father, born in a vineyard outside Fresno, was a raisin grower before he became a bar owner. I exited my car and approached the entrance with its 14-foot columns and wrought-iron balustrades. For a long time, she got no credit. Then one day, he was trying to find a marketing person and got a call from Lynda Sinay, who worked in advertising. Hes never put a dusty boot on the neck of a shovel and dug down into the soil. The pistachio trees in Wonderful number 6 million. Tomorrow? Down a rutted road, 100 trailers with foundations dressed in plywood back up against an orchard. I returned for two more sessions, and then he and Lynda took off to their $15 million vacation house in Aspen, where they were warring with the locals over a housing project for community workers that was blocking their view. Me, Im a carpetbagger from Beverly Hills. Nothing will stop the houses. No ones going to get fired for bringing home 2,500 pounds of nuts an acre. The Federal Trade Commission found Wonderful guilty of false advertising and ordered the Resnicks to stop claiming that POM cured heart disease and erectile dysfunction.

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