The wildfires engulfing Los Angeles have put an uncomfortable spotlight on two of its richest residents — Stewart and Lynda Resnick — agriculture tycoons whose farms guzzle a vital and scarce resource: water.
So far, the Resnicks’ Beverly Hills mansion, and the Picasso artworks that adorn its walls, have been spared the nearby Palisades and Eaton fires, even as their celebrity neighbors’ homes go up in smoke.
But they cannot so easily escape criticism for their agriculture empire, which sucks up more water than whole cities, even as LA firefighters cannot get a drop of the stuff out of the hydrants that line its streets.
Critics say these so-called ‘Beverly Hills farmers,’ and their ties to Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and other politicians, may be among the reasons that California is battling such an environmental apocalypse.
‘The Resnicks are powerful and their control of so much water is ridiculous,’ filmmaker Yasha Levine, co-director of the forthcoming documentary Pistachio Wars, told DailyMail.com.
‘How can one family own more water than the entire city of Los Angeles, almost 4 million people, uses in one year?’
Levine said the wildfires, chronic regional droughts and other environmental problems were part of the ‘larger political-technological machine that both LA and the Resnicks are plugged into.’
With their $13 billion fortune, the Resnicks are California’s richest farming family, with some 185,000 acres of land and a stake in the Kern Water Bank, a nearly 20,000-acre reservoir of water surplus in the San Joaquin Valley.
Stewart and Lynda Resnice, respectively 87 and 81, are worth $13 billion after controlling California farmland and water resources. Pictured here in their art-adorned Beverly Hills mansion
The LA couple’s farming business and water consumption has come under scrutiny as the city is ripped apart by apocalyptic wildfires
The octogenarian couple’s sprawling Wonderful Company business empire includes Pom Wonderful pomegranate juice, Wonderful Pistachios, Fiji Water, Halos mandarins, and Teleflora, the flower-delivery service.
They’ve reportedly donated $1.9 billion to academic institutions, climate change initiatives, cultural organizations and programs in California’s Central Valley. A whole pavilion of the LA County Museum of Art bears their name.
Despite their charity work, the Resnicks are repeatedly slammed for the massive amount of water sucked up by their farms, and their ability to win over politicians and control ever more of the scarce and precious resource.
A 2016 investigation by Mother Jones found that the Resnicks’ agricultural businesses consumed more water in some years than was used by the residents of Los Angeles and the entire San Francisco Bay Area combined.
That report claimed their business was built by controlling water supplies, by cleverly maneuvering the backroom politics of California’s byzantine water rules and getting chummy with the politicians who run the Golden State.
These include six-figure donations over the years to state governors, from Arnold Schwarzenegger to Jerry Brown. In 2021, they stumped up $250,000 to a campaign to stop Newsom from being kicked out of office.
In the 1990s, the Resnicks reportedly bought up tens of thousands of acres of almond, pistachio, and citrus groves for bargain prices in and around Kern County, in the San Joaquin Valley.
Back then, California was building new water infrastructure with taxpayer money, to divert rivers and store water to supply the farms and cities in drought-prone areas during seasons when the rain didn’t fall.
The Resnicks secured long-term contracts, including a majority stake in the Kern Water Bank, a 32-square-mile recharge basin that stores up to 1.5 million acre-feet of water, according to Forbes. At times, the bank sells water back to the state.
Yearslong lawsuits have failed to nix the water deals that benefit them, and the Resnicks appear to have enough support among state politicians to weather the criticism about their farming practices.
The fires have spotlighted ties between the Resnicks and California Gov Gavin Newsom
The Resnicks own more than 185,000 acres of farmland across California, including almosd groves, like the ones in this picture from Firebaugh
The Resnicks have for years battled criticism about the vast sums of water used to irrigate their crops, like this almond orchard irrigation system
Stewart and Lynda Resnick attend annual gala at one of the museums they fund
Last year, Newsom praised the Resnicks for cutting a savvy deal at an opportune moment.
‘These are the rules of the road and the rules that we set up, and they play by them,’ Newsom told The New York Times.
‘If we’re going to point fingers, we also have to reflect as policymakers about the system we created.’
Spokespeople for the Wonderful Company have in the past defended the Resnicks from allegations of guzzling up water and making it harder and more expensive for others to access the supplies they need.
In 2021, a spokesperson told Forbes that ‘we do not believe we have enough purchasing power to impact water prices.’
But the company did not answer the DailyMail.com’s requests for comment.
Like the Resnicks themselves, many of the company’s staffers live or work in LA, and their lives have been upended by the multiple blazes tearing the city apart.
As of Friday morning, the wildfires had killed at least 10 people and devoured nearly 10,000 structures, as the dry desert winds that fanned their devastating flames showed some signs of abating.
The Palisades Fire between Santa Monica and Malibu on the city’s western flank and the Eaton Fire in the east near Pasadena are the most destructive in LA history, consuming 53 square miles and turning whole neighborhoods to ash.
The fires were made possible by exceptionally dry conditions and a prolonged drought across Southern California.
Firefighters tackling the blazes have repeatedly been hampered by low water pressure and fire hydrants that have gone dry, exposing vulnerabilities in water supply systems not built for wildfires on this scale.
This has raised troubling questions about the management of California water supplies, and the influence of the Resnicks and other billionaire farmers who are enmeshed in state politics.
The couple’s Wonderful Pistachios are known by the catchy ‘Get Crackin’ ad campaign
The couple acquired a majority stake in the Kern Water Bank, one of California’s most important water storage resources
The Resnicks are big philanthropists and have their name on the redesigned Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, California
Lauren Steiner, an activist and YouTuber, dubs the Resnicks ‘the Koch Bros. of California water’ and has held rallies outside their 25,000-square-foot mansion to protest their growing control over state supplies.
‘I fear that neoliberal Newsom, who needs their campaign contributions to run for president, will not challenge their domination and control of California’s water,’ Steiner told DailyMail.com.
For Levine, the fires showcase how the ‘terraforming-aqueduct system’ that California built this past century gave rise to the disaster unfolding across America’s second-biggest city.
‘Everyone who lives in LA — from the celebs to the TikTok influencers to the pistachio oligarchs to their guy who works in the kitchen — are tied to it,’ Levine told DailyMail.com.
‘They’re able to live in LA because this terraforming-aqueduct system exists. Without the water it provides, the city would still be a sleepy little town, not the sprawling metropolis that it is today.’
