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He studied the situation. Vidovich, who has declined to sign paperwork ensuring his pipeline wont cause harm, filed a lawsuit alleging trespass. This is how Resnick became a pistachio, almond, and pomegranate grower. From a safe, Ellsberg had lifted the Pentagon Papers, the secret history of how successive presidents lied to the public to cover up the failings of the Vietnam War. John Vidovich. Not a single one of them wants any part of Wonderful. Forbes' Real-Time Billionaires rankings tracks the daily ups and downs of the world's richest people. Americas +1 212 318 2000. She deftly places her body between him and me. But I had some good people helping me.. One of his films, The Blob, became a cult classic, and they lived in a house on the Westside with two Rolls-Royces in the garage. What market share has been lost in Asia and the Middle East, the company is looking to get back in Mexico with its spicy Latin line of nuts. Being Wonderful means more than growing, harvesting, and distributing the best of the best. When I got out of law school, I probably had 100 people I was employing.. Yet the Resnick pipeline is doing just that. Only after the media were alerted did Stewart and Lynda claim to have discovered the clear-cutting. Now the land is dry and saline, drained to support a vast and rigid geometry of nut, fruit and dairy farms. The hillocks that existed back in Yokut Indian days were flattened by a hunk of metal called the Fresno Scraper. The project seemed simple: Using existing canals and new 48-inch pipe, he would ship water 10 miles from his property in Lemoore to property south of Stratford. While Vidovich owns less acreage than Boswell, more of it is devoted to high-value orchards. The Boswell Company wants it blocked, saying it threatens the companys own water supplies, which run through a canal over the pipelines underground route. I think were going to see more of these fights break out over water among competing users, said Richard Frank, professor of environmental practice at the UC Davis School of Law. At the time, I was heavy with state water but the state water had low allocations and I had no other water source over there (Dudley Ridge land in western Kings County), he told Henry. If he were on the scene today, hed have to add sashed Queens to the list. My husband would have been shot dead like the others, but he was lucky. We were asleep at the wheel. Digging in was its own wisdom, he discovered. Where he takes the water is none of my business., Hes taking it into his orchards in Kern. Instead of trying to sell the fruit as a piece of fruit, they squeezed its seeds into POMWonderful. He works year-round for Wonderful. 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. More pumping, locals say, worsens the regions destructive land subsidence. What do you need to know, sir?, Whats it been like here during the drought?, Drought, no drought, makes no difference. Native Americans fished from reed boats. It was linear, logical, fluid, and quite nearly destined. Her husband, Manuel, will awaken in 30 minutes to prepare for his night shift. The winter goes down as one of the wettest in recorded history. She joined the Oakland Tribune in 2001. Compulsive gambler and alcoholic. Now shes getting lots of credit.. A giant pistachio nut flashes on the big screen. To block constructionof the pipeline, Boswell parked a parade of giant construction vehicles atop the canals embankments. She owns this place. He goes on to explain what he means by own. Now theres something here. He certainly looks the part in his well-worn jeans and checkered shirts. It wasnt a midlife crisis, he told me. Water is what led me to Stewart Resnick in the winter of 2003. Ag Giants Boswell, Vidovich Sling Mud at Each Other Fifty-three percent of our employees are obese, and 12 percent of them have diabetes., The growers start to fidget. 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. Sandridge Partners plans new beef processing plant | John Lindt Hes never driven a tractor or opened an irrigation valve. Gov. Newsom's Water Portfolio Has No Water Entrepreneurs Theres an unease about the room. You Have Found Lost Hills! 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. 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. Everything but the turkey had come from his orchards. 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. If Resnick retains every drop, he might squeeze 25 acre-feet of water a day out of both pipes. State or federal water isnt enough. 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. She tells me her not-so-silent partner is Lady Lynda, who was so bothered that Lost Hills didnt have a sit-down restaurant of its own that she sought out Angelica. There, he tells me, in the shadow of the states great concrete vein moving snowmelt north to south, I will find a private, off-the-books pipeline that Stewart Resnick has built to keep his trees from dying. No picking of crop agitates the earth like the picking of almonds and pistachios. They rely only on rain, which concentrates the flavorful oils. A husband and wife sharing the reins is rare for corporate America, rarer still for industrial agriculture. All I know is I dont want to split it up or sell it in some leveraged buyout. ! it says. One year, it delivers 900,000 acre-feet of snowmelt. Too many pomegranates. In an era of climate change, everybody is scrambling. Where does the water end up? No announcement was made; locals noticed excavation, first reported by Lois Henry of SJV Water, a nonprofit news site that covers water issues in San Joaquin Valley. I come upon a Wonderful field man in a four-by-four truck who listens to my bewilderment and takes pity. Or he can devise a scheme to steal water from a neighbor up the road. But its here in the bottom of long-gone Tulare Lake, which once held more fresh water than Lake Tahoe, where a conflict has turned heated. The scale of productionand the ability to process, market, and sell its own cropsallows Wonderful to be mostly mediocre in the fields and remain highly profitable. His oldest son is retired in Seattle. China (including Macau and . He needs nearly 1,000 acre-feet a day for 165 daysthe length of nut-growing seasonto hang a good crop across his acres in western Kern. All the new water pours into the delta, and what doesnt go out to sea fills up the aqueduct again. On a chilly morning in January, the day the pipe was to cross under the canal, Boswells crew arrived to block construction with trucks, trailers, excavators, a motor grader and a bulldozer with the diamond B logo, according to the lawsuit. I look back at Resnick. So so sleepy, says another. My grandmother said it was his leftist politics that ate up that vineyard and the ones that followed. Who is going to use it? said attorney Herr, according to SJV Waters Henry. At Wonderful Health and Wellness, were educating our employees about this health crisis. Hes using it to irrigate his almonds and pistachios in Lost Hills. Many are here without documents, after all. We changed the culture of safety, and we think we can do the same with health, Anzaldo says. The gas to and from the orchards costs him $80 a week. Billionaire GOP donor says DeSantis won't return his calls What the Resnicks were doing for Lost Hills, though, was a level of philanthropy I had never witnessed in the valley. Back then, the Los Angeles Times had a bureau in the middle of California. Lynda sent the first batches of POM, week after week, as gifts to David Bowie, Rupert Murdoch, and Disney head Michael Eisner. Anything else I can help you with?, He seems in a hurry. He isnt farming dirt, Arax wrote. He was the bad guy in agriculture for no bigger offense than that he was big. He says his bosses have been instructing him to cut the water each irrigation. Five years ago, they decided to get rid of the nacho chips, french fries, and soft drinks. She splits her time between Palo Alto and Inverness, and in her spare time likes wildlife photography, swimming, skiing and backpacking. They were pushing plates, costume jewelry, perfume, and model cars. Lynda has a son who works as a musician and a son who suffered a birth trauma and lives in a care facility. Dont let his boots, blue jeans, and ball cap fool you, the old-timers say. Today, most everything in this desolate reach of Kern County, save for the oil wells, belongs to Paramount Farming, which belongs to the Resnicks. No one is out and about. His father, Stephen Vidovich, founded DeAnza Properties in 1966 and led the charge to convert the Santa Clara Valley from farmland and pave the way for Silicon Valley to become the hub of late-20th century and early-21st century American innovation. Theyre either working in the heat or hiding from the heat. He and Lynda wanted to run their own ads for their own brand. Now in farming, were in a unique position. His strategy, and his Silicon Valley wealth, arouse both admiration and suspicion in this rural community. Youre the one who needs to see., We pull out of the parking lot, past the palm trees and roses, and head up the thin ribbon of Highway 33 into the dust-swirling tunnel of nuts and fruits. They hide from the fact that it relies on the subjugation of peasants from Mexico they themselves have brought here. Maybe this explains why the United Way could declare the valley one of the nations skinflints, a place where the wealthy farmers donated to the childrens hospital or Fresno State athletics but almost never to the communities filled with Mexicans where their crops grew. When Lynda learned that half the students receiving thousands of dollars in company scholarships were dropping out of school, she wasnt deterred. That company led to another company, and he soon owned half the commercial alarm accounts in Los Angeles. I meet up with the Wonderful field man who first tipped me off to the pipeline. Or at least thats the way Vidovich puts it when I finally reach him. Where the pipes butt up against Twisselman Road, a more clever bit of engineering is required. Today, the highest bidder may grow crops in the region. Its John Vidovich. A cross of Jesus hangs from the bedpost. It took time to gain the respect of the people, and I was afraid. It was a hit. The courtship of Stewart and Lynda went fast. Whether its Fresno or Kings or Tulare or Kern counties, hes grabbing land where the groundwater is plenty or a river runs through it or the aqueduct spills its north-to-south flow. Like other small farmers, my water stays on my ground. The boss came back in, saw his do-nothing, and said only three words: Just get started. He began to move, and the job went quickly after that. For as far as I can see, the water in the canal runs inky through the orchards. It must have wounded all the more because she and Stewart thought of themselves as progressive Democrats. Im a billionaire. Hes got an awful temper hes trying to control through Kabbalah. A year into his studies, an uncle called from California. Facebook gives people the power to. The historic king of the region is the J.G. Falling groundwater levels are stressing their wells. According to alawsuit, one animal bolted through an electric fence onto a highway, where it was killed by a truck. He gambled on the price of nuts going up, and he gambled on the water never going dry. Former L.A. Fire Marshal John Vidovich has filed a lawsuit against the city, alleging he was "unlawfully and unceremoniously ousted from his job" in August 2016. All Rights Reserved. Ousted L.A. fire marshal claims corruption among city fire inspectors She remembers handing the boy to her sister-in-law, who carried phony papers, and watching them cross by bridge into California. No stranger enters this zone unless its to get rid of a body or dump waste from cooking meth or drown a hot car. His frat brother got bored, as rich boys do, and Resnick bought out his half interest for $300. If youve ever had Wonderful Pistachios, POM Wonderful pomegranate juice or Halo mandarin oranges, youve had produce grown on one of the largest farms in the world. This is the domain of Stewart Resnick, the richest farmer in the country and maybe the most peculiar one, too. I cash them the same. San Antonio south doesnt exist anymore. He is a small, good-looking man with a patch of black hair under his lip. Kingdom. Three dogs, part pit bull, the menacing part, have given up on the shade and lie on the open road. He doesnt feign surprise when I tell him about the pipeline, but he dismisses it as a private matter between private parties. She had her own bookabout her genius as a marketergoing. Hes carrying 55,000 pounds of crop in two swaggering trailers open to the sun. This is a lot of gestures to unpack, and as I exit the grounds, I keep turning around to get one last look thats true. Its an economy of scale on a scale no ones ever tried here. You cant reverse diabetes, but you can control it with a blood sugar level between 6.5 and 8. His story is the one Ive been carting around in my notebook for the past few decades, sure I was ready to write it after five years or ten years, only to learn of another twist that would lead me down another road. Bernard, hard to believe, is driving straight toward the aqueduct. He wonders what agriculture will look like in western Kern in ten years. I saw her a few months ago. Boswell Company, and Sandridge Partners, controlled by John Vidovich, will be back in court on March 23 when Judge Valerie Chrissakis will decide whether the Sandridge pipeline is subject to review under the California Environmental Quality Act If so, it would mean the pipeline would have to undergo a full-blown EIR with . But that doesnt make people buy a second bottle. At the buildings he was cleaning, he noticed that no one was watching the front and back doors. 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 wanted assurance that the pipeline wont interfere with the canal, as well as proof that Vidovich has $5 million in insurance if the canal gets damaged. No farmer ever is. He hired Bert Steir, a Bostonian with a Bronze Star from the Second World War and a degree from Harvard, to come west and work his deals. Past Bakersfield and the high school football stadium where Frank Gifford and Les Richter, two future NFL Hall of Famers, squared off in the Valley Championship in 1947 in the driving rain. Burglar alarms, on the other hand, offered round-the-clock vigilance without coffee breaks. This was the same distancegeographic, psychicthat allowed him and Lynda to clear-cut the oaks and to kill the independent pistachio commission, to grab a water bank that belonged to the state and to pretend for 30 years that Lost Hills wasnt a place of dire need. The continuous rattle feeds the nuts into a series of bins on the backside of the tractor. One mile, two miles, three miles, fourit keeps going until it reaches another county and back to one of the main canals in the Dudley Ridge Water District. So the company drafted a list of demands. He has plenty of well water in the northern part of Kings County, outside J.G. I get it. He says he doesnt feel sorry for Resnick. Russo and Ellsberg needed a place to photocopy the 7,000 pages, and Lynda volunteered the Xerox machine at her ad agency on Melrose Avenue. He was about my size, but he was very tough. But those deals were one water district selling to another water district. Fussing with one input or another, he can produce 3,500 pounds of nuts an acre. He blames Iran. 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.