In 1994, Stewart and Lynda Resnick, a billionaire couple, gained control over a significant portion of California’s water resources through a series of secretive meetings. This maneuver allowed them to build a business empire – and at times, sell water back to the public, a resource largely funded by taxpayers. Now, that privatisation of an essential human right has come back to haunt California in the form of shining a spotlight on it via the deadly wildfires that have swept part of the state.
The Resnicks own the Wonderful Company, a privately held conglomerate valued at over $5 billion, producing popular products like pistachios, pomegranate juice, mandarins, and flowers. Their agricultural operations consume approximately 150 billion gallons of water annually, even as urban water systems in California face severe shortages, receiving only 5% of their requested allocations in 2023.
150 billion gallons, by the way, is a huge amount more than the controversial Santa Ynez reservoir holds at 117 million gallons. This is the reservoir that has been empty for at least a year.
Now, none of this is to say that the couple are responsible for the shortage of water during the ongoing fires. That, as Forbes pointed out, would be antisemitic conspiracy theory – like this, from far-right Unity News Network:
One of the major problems facing California during these fires is a lack of access to water.
Why?
A wealthy family hoards all of the water to supply their industrial farm business called the 'Wonderful Company'.
Their names?
The Resnick Family. pic.twitter.com/n8suJciDnU
— UNN (@UnityNewsNet) January 9, 2025
The couple aren’t ‘hoarding all of the water’ as California burns However, what the Resnick’s control over, and use of, water does show us is a broken system for what is a human right.
Meet the Resnicks
The Resnicks’ dominance in California’s water supply traces back to the acquisition of the Kern Water Bank, one of the state’s largest underground water storage facilities. Originally developed with public funds, the Kern Water Bank was transferred to private ownership during the 1994 Monterey Agreements, a series of closed-door negotiations involving state officials and major agricultural landowners, including the Resnicks.
As Perfect Union noted:
What once belonged to the state was transferred to a few private water contractors. One of which was Westside Mutual, a wholly owned subsidiary of Wonderful Foods. The Wonderful employee who runs Westside, Bill Phillimore, is the chairman of the ‘public’ organization that manages the Kern Water Bank.
Boom. One secret meeting and the Resnicks owned nearly 60% of an important California water resource, built with hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money.
This privatisation has been controversial, especially during periods of drought. Critics argue that the Resnicks’ extensive water use for cultivating water-intensive crops like almonds and pistachios exacerbates water scarcity for the rest of the state. A single almond, for instance, can require up to 1.1 gallons of water to produce.
The Resnicks have also invested in local communities, particularly in California’s Central Valley. They have funded health centers, pre-K facilities, housing projects, and other community infrastructure in areas like Lost Hills.
However, Perfect Union says this is cynical manipulation of communities:
They are among the top donors to the University of California system, with their donations focusing on agricultural and ecological studies. The Resnicks have basically bought entire departments who put out studies on how water systems should be managed, and where funding should go. That leads to even more federal and state taxpayer dollars being used to fix up what the Resnicks profit off of…
They lobby for increased tensions with Iran to keep embargos on superior Iranian pistachios. Their giant crops lead to monocultures which kills important pollinators. They siphon taxpayer dollars into the charter schools they own, set up to train children to work on their farms. And of course, like any company of this size, they exploit their workers.
The Resnicks’ influence extends beyond agriculture. They own Fiji Water, importing bottled water from the South Pacific while exporting water-intensive crops from California, a juxtaposition that has drawn further scrutiny.
Screwing the workers over
However, they also have keen disregard for workers rights. As the Los Angeles Times reported, in early 2023, the United Farm Workers (UFW) initiated a campaign to unionise over 600 employees at Wonderful Nurseries, a subsidiary of The Wonderful Company.
The UFW employed a “card check” process, collecting signed authorisation cards from more than half of the nursery workers, leading the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB) to certify the union as their representative on 1 March 2023. This certification set a deadline for the company and the union to negotiate a contract.
In response, Wonderful Nurseries engaged in anti-trade union activities, including holding meetings where workers were allegedly coerced into revoking their union support. The ALRB’s general counsel, Julia Montgomery, accused the company of violating workers’ rights through these actions. Wonderful denied these allegations, asserting that any declarations against the union were made voluntarily by employees.
Facing the ALRB’s mandate to negotiate a contract by 3 June 2023, or have terms imposed, Wonderful filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the 2022 and 2023 state laws that facilitated the unionisation process. The company argued that these laws violated its due process rights under both the state and U.S. constitutions. If successful, this legal challenge could undermine protections for farmworkers established since the 1970s. At the time of writing, the case was still ongoing.
All this is without their involvement in Israel’s ethnic cleansing and colonialism.
Investing in colonialism and ethnic cleansing
Through their foundation, the Resnicks have donated substantial sums annually to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), primarily via the American Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces. Between 2015 and 2022, their contributions amounted to approximately $2.4 million.
Beyond direct military support, the Resnicks have funded educational institutions closely linked to Israel’s military and intelligence sectors. Notably, they have contributed to the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, an influential think tank with strong ties to Israel’s defense establishment. Additionally, they have been involved with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a think tank that originated as an extension of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and advocates for pro-Israel policies in the US.
The Resnicks’ support for Israel aligns with their personal beliefs in the necessity of a Jewish nation. However, their backing also intersects with their business interests. Their dominance in the American pistachio industry is partly attributed to geopolitical events in the Middle East, particularly US interventions in Iran.
Following the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the subsequent US sanctions against Iran, Iran’s pistachio industry faced significant barriers in global trade. These sanctions enabled the Resnicks to establish and expand their pistachio business in California, eventually surpassing Iran’s production.
Despite the sanctions, Iran remains a competitor in the global pistachio market. The Resnicks have actively supported US policies that impose economic pressures on Iran, aligning with their business interests to limit Iranian competition. Their involvement with organisations advocating for stringent measures against Iran reflects a convergence of personal, political, and economic motivations.
The Resnicks: capitalists on steroids
Overall, through strategic acquisitions and political influence, hyper capitalists the Resnicks have secured control over substantial portions of California’s water supply. Their agricultural enterprises benefit from resources developed with public funds, raising huge questions about water rights, resource allocation, and the privatisation of essential public assets – not least when California is burning:
One billionaire couple owns almost all the water in California.
In 1994, the Resnicks secretly seized control of California’s public water supply.
Now their companies use 150 billion gallons every year while working class people suffer under drought conditions. pic.twitter.com/1xu1LzvJYS
— More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) January 8, 2025
