Making hundreds of millions of dollars in the process?. All I know is I dont want to split it up or sell it in some leveraged buyout. He blames Iran. Boswell II started the Boswell company. The Kings is bone-dry as usual. The believer and the skeptic do their tussle inside my head. Every time I see it, Im inspired and proud of what weve been able to accomplish in such a short amount of time. Theyll take home $11 an hour for their labors. He explains that Wonderful has grown too big to hassle such precision. She delivers it in classic Lynda style. This is an offering of cake handed down from king and queen to serfs. But when your neighbor is going to lose his crop, you do what you can to help him., I tell Vidovich this sounds almost charitable. Lois Henry is the CEO and editor of SJV Water, a nonprofit, independent online news publication dedicated to covering water issues in the San Joaquin Valley. I learned back then that our farmers thought the whole world was out to screw them. In his writing in The Dreamt Land, Arax notes that Vidovich found a creative route around that restriction. His second son is a psychiatrist. Rain for Rent, the pipes say. But Vidovich has a history of selling and shipping water outside the valley, so some locals dont trust him. When they get on their high horse, you dont want to argue with them.. Fresh from a shower, a red Kabbalah string tied around his wrist and a multihued pair of socks covering his feet, he welcomed me. I walk up and reintroduce myself. He started cleaning pizza parlors and drugstores. Angelica, one of four sisters, runs the restaurant. Eat a corn tortilla instead, she urges. Vidovich didnt have to wait long for a buyer to come calling. The city of Los Angeles, by comparison, consumes 587,000 acre-feet. Wonderful, by contrast, shoots for the middle. Its also in the real estate business, developing and marketing master planned communities and business parks. Lets meet again in two weeks, he said. It cant be farmed like it was, he says. The Iranians dont irrigate their trees. Mobil and Texaco and Prudential Life were willing to practically give the ground and trees away. Under her rethink agriculture program, the kids will be trained in plant science and irrigation technology, marketing and sales. He emptied the sky of tens of millions of geese and drained the 800 square miles of Tulare Lake dry. He was 13 and standing inside the Rutgers Pharmacy on the first day of his first job. Where he takes the water is none of my business., Hes taking it into his orchards in Kern. The William Saroyan Theatre was packed that October 1996 night. Jun 27, 2007. Its ridiculous, he said. Thousands of Wonderful acres lay bare. I meet up with the Wonderful field man who first tipped me off to the pipeline. Its going to be what its going to be. It supports two full-ride college scholarships to the top graduates of Corcoran High School and a faculty position at Fresno State. I get it. To manage the disease. The pipeline project is suspended while the two sides battle in court. She can be reached at lois.henry . It will carry his private water on his private land, never leaving the regions geological basin. Not a single penny was put in that piggy bank.. Vidovich, whose total compensation was about $236,000 in the last fiscal year, was previously the agency's chief of staff. Under lights, he prunes, plows, and irrigates the almonds. Here, a crew has dug a culvert beneath the road and hiked the pipeline under the asphalt that divides one field from another. He leveled its hog wallows, denuded its salt brush, and killed the last of its mustang, antelope, and tule elk. His ego had gotten the best of him, he conceded. Whether its the glint of a 15-carat, yellow canary diamond ring, a 25th wedding anniversary gift from Stewart, or one of the pomegranate-colored rubies she says are a girls best friend, its hard to tell from the back row. I tried not to stare at the gold that was everywhere: heavy-legged gold furniture, paintings in thick gold frames, gold-leaf carpet, and gold-fringed drapes. Anzaldo grew up in Bakersfield and attended a Catholic high school where he played football and basketball. Then he motions to Lynda, whos standing off to the side of the light-dimmed stage. Sugar kills, she tells them. It is flowing to a place of dire thirst. We were asleep at the wheel. Not a single one of them wants any part of Wonderful. Down the great aqueduct, by freight of politics and gravity, came the excess waters of the Sacramento River. I was 16, and his packing house was my first job, a baptism into the money, money, money world of the men who grew fruit and the men who sold it. This was how a billionaire who needed more water did politics. The Mojave Water Agency in the high desert needed a backup supply to serve its growing communities of Barstow and Apple Valley, Hesperia and Victorville. 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. Pablo prunes and irrigates the almond and pistachio trees and applies the chemicals that cannot be applied by helicopter. The comments don't come from Boswell and Vidovich themselves, of course, but from the groundwater sustainability agencies each farming . As he bled the aquifer dry, he called on the government to bring him an even mightier river from afar. 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. His trees were drinking from the Central Valley Project and the State Water Project, from rivers and irrigation canals and the water bank. He used to work for the Resnicks before Stewart put him in charge of the district. She had recently divorced and wasnt about to settle for a life in Culver City. A California developer, farmer, and water buyer, John Vidovich, is seeking approval to build a beef feedlot and processing plant near Lemoore on what appears to be a 789-acre project located along Highway 41, just south of Highway 198. . It was his father and uncles who founded the company in 1925. Vidovich has more than one reason to be evasive. Of the 22,000 acres they ripped during the drought, 18,000 acres are being replanted in pistachios. And then they pump more groundwater. Groundwater agencies up and down the San Joaquin Valley had to file plans with the Department of Water Resources earlier this year showing . Dont let his boots, blue jeans, and ball cap fool you, the old-timers say. This is Twisselman. He does enough farming in the area to make it look like hes a farmer. Anything else I can help you with?, He seems in a hurry. I dont know how Hershey did Hershey, Pennsylvania, but Lynda is present in every painted sunburst, every planted flower, every blade of grass. It is the ditch up the road, the one that carries no water, that is filled with old mattresses and spent appliances. A day later, I get a call from Mr. Resnick. Before he died at age 86, J.G. Then he turned and faced me. It comes out like pee, says her 11-year-old daughter. The crops we grow can only be grown in a few places in the world. Somehow, 30 or 40 nuts arent compelled to drop. In Kern County, one in two adults and almost one in five children are obese. His father met his mother, the cantors daughter, and they married. In his best Borscht Belt nasal, he takes a jab. Shes done giving big gifts to Los Angeles museums and mental health hospitals that name buildings after her and Stewart. Sandridge Partners, controlled by Vidovich, is building a 10-mile-long route on its properties to ship water from its wells in the north to its thirsty fields in the south. 2019 - 2023 The San Joaquin Valley Sun, a project of, Meet the water baron you (likely) havent heard of, Calif. OKs 2036 ban on diesel truck sales, Newsom slaps down tax hike proposal to close deficit, Yosemite Valley reopens as flooding worries subside, Saints 4th round pick brings Fresno St.s Haener, Carr together, now writing exclusively for her own service, SJVWater. He got himself into this jam. So now theyre doing everything they can to frustrate my ability to utilize the property, said Vidovich. She is twinkling from earlobe and finger. Tender sprouts poke out of the dry soil, and I bend down to feel their prickle. For just $5/month, you can help sustain Marketplace so we can keep reporting on the things that matter to you. I leave Gabbys and follow a winding concrete path through the new Wonderful Park. But this is water for Mr. Resnick. The sale got under the skin of valley farmers. Too many almonds. He isnt farming dirt, Arax wrote. The space for a familys secrets is only a few feet. Where is the water going? Even Wonderful Park is spelled with the same heart-shaped O that stamps a bottle of POM. Im down, Stewart, he protests. As he drives off, he throws a clue out the window. We are creating foods. Nothing keeps prices high like a monopoly. It hardly ceases for the next five months. And so the question of sustainability is front and center here now in California. Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on. The new plantings arent cotton, alfalfa, or carrotsthe crops a farmer can decide not to seed when water becomes scarce. Days Inn or Motel 6. Giant pincers manned by a single worker grab the tree by the throat and start shaking. Theyre paying $340 a month for its privilege. Not the people. Each tree produces 38 pounds of nuts. He left in 1956. I never liked New Jersey, but I never knew why. 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. Her husband, Manuel, will awaken in 30 minutes to prepare for his night shift. Unlike many other billionaires, they could poke fun at themselves. Still, none of it would have happened without luck., What he and Lynda had done with the wretched pomegranate was another matter. This is Lynda.. The nut must be hurried from bin to truck to processing plant to keep it from discoloring. Hed been diagnosed with early prostate cancer and had no doubt that the juice was keeping him well. STRATFORD Water is the lifeblood in the parched San Joaquin Valley, sustaining endless acres of trees, seeds and pastures that feed a hungry nation. It was the early spring of 2008, and this time his secretary didnt hang up on me. As he walks away, I notice his $400 sneakers. At the core, though, the Resnicks were still moved by the duty of social justice, not just as traditional liberals but as secular Jews. Mathews: Should climate projects benefit communities they impact? Big fish eat the small fish here. All Rights Reserved. His bar was a place for guys, Damon Runyontype guys., Resnicks pals were all Jewish kids from upper-class families, so it wasnt easy being the poorest one, the one whose father was a gambler and capable at any moment of losing the few comforts they had. 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. And you know why? Its loaded, Bernard says. Not long before, Vidovich was trying to grab water from Resnick, not give it. In the trailer next door, Lupes cousin Margarita lives with her husband, Selfo, and their three young children. State water dwindling year after year. You may have never heard of John Vidovich, but his impact on the day-to-day life of the average southern San Joaquin Valley farmer is difficult to be understated. Like his father, hes an intensely private businessman. China (including Macau and . Measuring the reach of the Resnicks, its tempting to lean on the hyperventilated language of the 1930s: Empire. He spends much of his off hours fixing it up. But inside he had these weaknesses. Every last tree has been torn out of the ground. Manhattan was 30 minutes in one direction; the Jersey Shore, 30 minutes in the other. At the buildings he was cleaning, he noticed that no one was watching the front and back doors. The food is more. So beginning in the 1940s, Kern farmers went out and grabbed a share of not one distant river but two: the San Joaquin to the north and the Sacramento to the north of that. Then some of the money we save goes to pay the coyote. Vidovich, who has declined to sign paperwork ensuring his pipeline wont cause harm, filed a lawsuit alleging trespass. Shes designing the curriculum.. 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. I saw her a few months ago. Or at least thats the way Vidovich puts it when I finally reach him. Lynda spent $150,000 at an auction to buy the beaded gown and matching bolero jacket, the Elvis Dress, that Princess Diana had worn on a visit to Hong Kong. Wonderful is getting smaller, he says. But the players are different. Across the field, a heavy machine is stacking whats left of the trees into giant mounds. 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. They donated $15 million to found UCLAs Stewart and Lynda Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital and more than $25 million to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art to build a pavilion in their name. But this wasnt the Resnick Pavilion at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. There have been several instances where damaged equipment has reduced flows, he said. The front gates of the 25,000-square-foot Beaux Arts mansion on Sunset Boulevard magically opened without a guard giving a nod. I come upon a Wonderful field man in a four-by-four truck who listens to my bewilderment and takes pity. Where does the water end up? The helicopter buzzing started in February, scattering cattle. As the nuts pour down onto the roof of the catcher, the operator shifts the trough so that it becomes a conveyor belt. I was prepared to knock on the door, but a housekeeper, flanked by two blow-dried dogs, greeted me on the front steps and led me inside. The pipeline will pose a constant and continued threat to the easements function, compromising the structural integrity of the easement through saturation and subsidence or by negligent maintenance, wrote attorney Leonard Herr. You may have never heard of John Vidovich, but his impact on the day-to-day life of the average southern San Joaquin Valley farmer is difficult to be understated. He had no intention of farming it, either. Los Angeles Fire Marshal John Vidovich was at the peak of his career in 2015. Vidovich, in 2009, according to media reports, sold the rights to 14,000-acre-feet of state water from a . I cut across Twisselman Road to the pipeline gliding along the aqueduct like a silver snake. Correction: August 8, 2022 An earlier version of this article incorrectly reported that Stanford grad James Griffin "J.G." But a controversial pipeline sits empty, as dry as dust, caught in an angry feud between two of Californias largest land barons, Silicon Valley developer and farmer John Vidovich and Pasadena-based longtime cotton king J.G. California showed me why.. Johannesburg He spent his vast fortune on a 30-year quest to save the rhinoceros. I sort of remember growing up on a farm, he said. Thats all fine and good, Resnick replied, but what about the $1 million-plus hed spent on lawyers fees? For college, he picked California Polytechnic in San Luis Obispo over the hill and majored in agriculture business. Ive done no big wrong in my life that would cause me to have any. Yet the Resnick pipeline is doing just that. When he was told there were fields upon fields, he did not believe there could be this many fields. This is a magnitude of intervention that no other agricultural company in California has ever attempted. Its known as a census-designated place, which is another way of saying that Kern County has every reason to neglect it. 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. He sold a chunk of land to the builders of Sunnyvale and decided he could develop the rest himself. At Highland Park High, he excelled in math and struggled in English. 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. He was a big drinker, a big liver who loved the fast life. But that still doesnt mean that most people in town can afford to eat here. His strategy, and his Silicon Valley wealth, arouse both admiration and suspicion in this rural community. No one pushes their product harder. It was this persistence and, above all, good timing that explained his bigness. His father grew grapes, cherries, and apricots in the Santa Clara Valley back when Stanford University still had a reason to be known as The Farm. He yanks and pulls, and it finally comes off, throwing him a foot backward. Past Delano and the first vineyards that Cesar Chavez marched against. Hes oblivious, or so it seems. What started as a dispute about a tube of plastic under a muddy ditch is escalating into a bitterlegal fight between the two multimillion-dollar businesses, pitting old power against new money and ambition. This water basically came from a land owned by someone whos also a near billionaire a guy named John Vidovich. Theyre listening with their heads bent down. 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. Order finds itself through action. This water basically came from a land owned by someone who's also a near billionaire a guy named John Vidovich. In case the growers are fearing the antitrust cops from the Department of Justice, they neednt. Everything but the turkey had come from his orchards. But if you want to be in agriculture, you need to go to the Central Valley, said Vidovich.
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