Domestic sales are up 42 percent over the past eight years, but foreign sales have stalled. 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. Nowhere to turn, I turn back around and roll down my window. All told, nine men operating five machines will pick clean this orchard over the next four weeks. He gambled on the price of nuts going up, and he gambled on the water never going dry. He never knows when, but the pattern is the same, based on flight radar recordings. Last time he checked, he told me he owned 180,000 acres of California. A parched Southern California suburb looking to keep up with a booming population. It was simply a place to park some money and have another opportunity. He drove to Delano, the farm town where Chavez and his union had made so much trouble and history. Across the field, a heavy machine is stacking whats left of the trees into giant mounds. Los Angeles Fire Marshal John Vidovich was at the peak of his career in 2015. The shiny red orbs, three months shy of harvest, pop out from the bright green leaves like bulbs on a Christmas tree. Forbes' Real-Time Billionaires rankings tracks the daily ups and downs of the world's richest people. Together, the Resnicks have wedded the valleys hidebound farming culture with L.A.s celebrity culture. Once each tree has been shaken, the nuts are left on the ground for a few days to dry. It was like being in the middle of a hurricane.. The wildfires cant be far behind. Its been more than a year since he gave me the cold shoulder at the pistachio conference. By the time he died an old man on his tractor in the Cupertino Hills, where he had planted grapes again and was making wine, the transformation of his valley by the silicon chip was complete. Due to the drought, this water would be impossible to replace, it said. Yes, the pipeline belongs to Resnick. The states massive plumbing system is sending virtually nothing to farmers. The rent is $540. This is the route my grandfather, one of a legion of fruit tramps, took as he drifted from farm to farm in the 1920s picking crops. He was about my size, but he was very tough. She gestures to the young students in the front row, the ones enrolled in the ag-prep classes, and asks them to stand up and take a bow. The new plantings arent cotton, alfalfa, or carrotsthe crops a farmer can decide not to seed when water becomes scarce. Its California., Sure. 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. All this stirring up is a consequence of mechanization. The aquifer, a sea of water beneath the clay that dates back centuries, isnt bottomless. It takes a lot of work to get ahead. She and Manuel were able to buy their trailer several years ago. 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. What to give a grieving widow and her five children in Lost Hills but drinking water? When John Vidovich was appointed as fire marshal in September 2014, he was given the difficult task of cleaning up the city of L.A.'s stubbornly antiquated Fire Prevention Bureau, making it more . When you first meet John Vidovich, everything from his ball cap to his dirty boots tells you he's a farmer. She was aiming to surround herself with famous actors and artists and public intellectuals. It should be right here, but I dont see it. None of this is my idea. Her brother-in-law was killed recently in a car crash along Highway 46. The fog is our history. Hes thankful to the Resnicks, especially Lady Lynda, for that. My life is about California. In a report filed Wednesday with the county . And Vidovich ended up pumping water an extraordinary amount of water out of the ground in an area where theyre pumping so much water on the ground the land is sinking. So how do we do even better next year?. We tell the children about the fields when they are young so they dont know the fields when they are old, she says. More than a dozen family members have followed Lupe and Manuel to Lost Hills. Lets call it what it is, he says. In fact, the piece is called A kingdom from dust. Its a pretty dry place right? Theres Cheat Death for their antioxidant-rich pomegranate juice and Get Crackin for their pistachios and Untouched by Man for their Fiji water. Whether he realizes it, hes part of the biggest pistachio harvest in history. One year, it delivers 900,000 acre-feet of snowmelt. Thats on top of managing 100,000 acres of farmland and sitting in on Valley-based water boards. Thats 281 square miles. As far as the company can tell, no active salmonella has ever traced back to the plant. This must be the spot the Wonderful field man was describing. If anyone doubted the health benefits of the juice, they spent more than $30 million in research to prove that it fought heart disease and prostate woes. How much water are we talking about?, Id rather not get too specific. Though his father passed 13 years ago, the son a graduate of Santa Clara School of Law and inactive lawyer continues to manage the real estate firm with holdings in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Salt Lake City, and San Diegos North County. He blames Iran. But Paramount isnt Paramount anymore. The POM tanks, Im told, are backed up with a three-year supply. Everything but the turkey had come from his orchards. The south valleyits people and poverty, its obesity and diabetesis her newest mission. In the winter of 2010, Vidovich put up for sale half his draw of state water from the Dudley Ridge Water District. Sitting in his mansion in 2008, he already counted more than 100,000 acres of orchards across five counties. Thats a billion-dollar crop. Arax: This place called Lost Hills, it is kind of a modern-day company town not unlike Hershey, Pennsylvania. 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. What happens to Wonderful? The fight between the Tulare Lake Canal Company, controlled by the J.G. He explains that Wonderful has grown too big to hassle such precision. Unlike the almond, the pistachio is moist and combustible. That was eight or nine years ago. My dust cloud tells him Im getting close. In this fragile and failing oasis, small farmers worry that both will sell precious water to the highest bidders, then ship it far away. Nothing will stop the houses. I didnt know good land from bad land. But I couldnt have picked a more cinematic name than Lost Hills. Each section of pipe is 40 feet long. Brad Steinwede. One giant dealing water to another has rubbed smaller operators along the Kings River, but what it signals that is perhaps more worrisome that Valley water can easily wind up on the block. So I ask about the big picture. The nuts are kept there a few more daysany longer and the ants will attack themto complete their drying. Theres no issue with the pipeline.. Why not send him an email? the secretary suggested. Or he can devise a scheme to steal water from a neighbor up the road. He went out and bought an alarm company. Coke, Gatorade, and Monster Energy are sky-high in sweeteners, but dont be fooled by that SunnyD, either. No one is out and about. U.S. immigration has little say-so here. As he bled the aquifer dry, he called on the government to bring him an even mightier river from afar. The imported flow arrives by way of the Central Valley Project and State Water Project, the one-of-a-kind hydraulic system built by the feds and state to remedy Gods uneven design of California. Im in another land, an expanse of hard, ugly, cratered-out earth the color of sand. Twine strung trailer to trailer hangs with the laundry of fathers, mothers, and children. And so the question of sustainability is front and center here now in California. Theres a lot of people who dont like me, he said after his fathers death. The Mojave Water Agency, a San Bernardino-based water provider. Central Californias family raisin farms are drying up, Commercial bees, the unsung heroes of the nut business, From California to the Midwest, examining the perils of industrial farming and the risk to food, Drought has California farms destroying crops, rather than pay for water, Californias drought is all but over, but some wells are still dry, The color of the year has a political past, A California farm battles drought: Were out here trying to survive, Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on, Seasonal foreign workers fill critical landscaping jobs, enabled by easier access to visas. Ultimately, it drives a lucrative if sad mission, as uttered by the looming giant himself. She wanted me to put our $5 million in an account, draw interest, and we could live happily on the 50 grand a year.. Somehow, 30 or 40 nuts arent compelled to drop. I feel his gaze going past me, his voice turning oddly sentimental. John Vidovich is 67 years old and was born on 11/23/1955. Here and there a mulberry tree, its canopy pruned back, breaks up the red-smeared sky.. But if you want to be in agriculture, you need to go to the Central Valley, said Vidovich. His face is blank. For years, agriculture has been given a wide berth when it comes to monopolistic practices. She walks off the stage with Stewart. They all just started running, and kept running, and blew right through the hot wire fence, recalled dairyman Wilson, who estimates $80,000 in fence damage. Dun & Bradstreet collects private company financials for more than 23 . The Sotos made a name for themselves in Lost Hills by taking their taco trucks into the agricultural fields. Then one day, he was trying to find a marketing person and got a call from Lynda Sinay, who worked in advertising. I sit in my car and wait in the parking lot. The rain starts to fall, big, fat, slashing drops that feel like electricity on my open palm. John, 66, is a former military intelligence officer and Santa Clara Law School graduate who served as Santa Clara County Planning Commissioner from 1990 to 1994 and is as shrewd as his father. But inside he had these weaknesses. I did sell water out of Kings County to an urban user and people didnt like it. He had left for the cornfields a few minutes before the killings.. It was going to houses. It's John Vidovich. Drought turning to floodit is the story of California. Every last tree has been torn out of the ground. If you study his moves, you can see a method to the acres he is accumulating. The water will be stripped from the land and sold to developers of new towns both here and over the mountain. Highway 46 shoots past Resnick almonds and takes you straight into town, population 1,938. How will money and power reshape this desiccated landscape? But most of this water has been spent by the Resnicks and other account holders in years two, three, and four of the drought. I had finished the last chapter of The King of California, a book I wrote with a good friend about J.G. This was Lost Hills before Lynda got involved. I park the car and walk in the direction of a scattering of buildings slapped together with stucco and corrugated tin. Water wars in a drying California: New money, Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window), Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window), First Republic Bank seized, sold to JPMorgan Chase, Water wars in a drying California: New money vs. old power in San Joaquin Valley, PG&E measures 211 inches of snow in final Northern California park survey, Walters: Lengthy California water rights battle moves into the Legislature, This California town hasnt had clean drinking water in 11 years, California snowpack data debunked: 2023 was no record year. Hes not only able to irrigate his nut trees with an imported flow of groundwater40,000 acre-feet in some years. But theres no denying his desperation. The farmer corralled the snowmelt and erased the valley, its desert and marsh. She joined the Oakland Tribune in 2001. The state of California has adopted a new law that finally regulates the pumping. Before he left her to cross alone, he gave her soda, water, chips, and Cheetos. To find its flow, Id have to go looking in a thousand irrigation ditches in the fields beyond. This is the Lynda who now endeavors to see farmhands as something more than workers. And when youve been as lucky as weve been, you start to think you can ride out drought, too., He did learn one lesson. Shell check in every so often to see how business is going. At the time we were handing out college scholarships in the valley, but Lynda decided it wasnt nearly enough. A year and a half after hearing Sandeland in the wake of Giblers storyLynda kicked into high gear their mission to save Lost Hills and several other farmworker towns where Wonderful operated its orchards and processing plants. EMEA +44 20 7330 7500. Arax: They lose their livelihood. Resnick dipped into his savings from his job at a mental hospital and went in half on the machine. But that doesnt make people buy a second bottle. 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. I steer toward the almonds, past a row of worker housing and a main gate. But the one thing he cant control is what hes most dependent on water. So its a really extraordinary kind of development thats never happened in agriculture in California before really to raise the living of your workers. One man drives and shakes the tree while the other man makes sure the clusters fall into the butterfly opening of the receiver. The big man with the goatee behind the wheel is Bernard Puget, a Basque sheepmans son who oversees these orchards. Tracts of houses, Californias last affordable dream, civilize three or four exits, and then its back to the open road splattered with the guts and feathers of chickens that jumped ship on the slaughterhouse drive. Each tree produces 22 pounds of nuts. More recently, he earned $40 million in an easement deal with a water bank and exchange that seeks to siphon flood water out of a Kings County canal for storage in Kern County. Mr. Vidovich was a descendant of one of the pioneer farm families that settled here from Croatia . Theyre no longer in danger. 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. The Yokut had a saying that when the farmer drained the last drops of snowmelt from Tulare Lake, the water would return. 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. Hes never driven a tractor or opened an irrigation valve. 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. They had survived the drought. John Vidovich will tell you hes the interloper who came over the other mountain, the Coast Range. This is the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley. This amounted to 14,000 acre-feet. Legal bills for this and other Boswell-related disputes are costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, he said. Even for someone with Vidovichs savvy, the depth of this summers drought could be devastating. I now hear whispers of water belonging to farmers two counties away being pumped out of the ground and hijacked in the dead of night to irrigate the nuts of Lost Hills. Dynamic search and list-building capabilities. Inside sits a young man named Pablo. After school and on weekends, wed clean and wax floors. Im down, Stewart, he protests. Thats all fine and good, Resnick replied, but what about the $1 million-plus hed spent on lawyers fees? Because he hadnt done it with Daddys money or what he considered a superior brain, he attributed his wealth to luck and to a simple lesson he had learned early in life.
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