But not even the two projects working in perfect tandem can defy drought. I thwack both lines. Each square-mile section is divided into blocks, and each block counts a precise number of rows. And so that water was feedingResnick pistachios and almonds and keeping them alive in the worst of the drought. I didnt see the tumbleweeds along the roadside and the strip of parched earth that separated what remained of the desert from the perfect rows of irrigated agriculture. One way or the other, we got rid of our last farm a few years before I was born and moved to the Fresno suburbs. My business approach right now is to acquire as much water as I can to be diversified in water. The nets of the Chinese during the Gold Rush caught terrapin that was served as turtle soup in the fanciest restaurants of San Francisco. The hillocks that existed back in Yokut Indian days were flattened by a hunk of metal called the Fresno Scraper. Hes serious about taking water out of this valley, Pace said. He had an industrial machine, hardly used, that scrubbed and waxed floors. The bowls on her kitchen table are filled with grapes, berries, bananas, and red and green bell peppers. A balancing of books in an office in the city has decided that this orchard and others around it, covered by too little water, can go. Shes built a grocery section in the back of the caf stocked with grapeseed oil and what she touts are Whole Foodsquality vegetables and fruits that sell at Walmart prices. Why grapeseed oil, I ask Andy Anzaldo, head of grower relations and a fitness buff, whos taken on the added duties of what might be called Wonderfuls Minister of Health. He explains that Wonderful has grown too big to hassle such precision. His father worked as a truck driver, transporting crops to the city. He says he doesnt feel sorry for Resnick. When I look around here at what weve built and then look back at my life in New Jersey, I think, How did it happen? For one man and woman to build something like this would be almost impossible today.. Today is quincena day, twice-a-month payday, and he needs me to scram because the workers coming in to cash their checks and wire 25 percent back across the border to families in Guanajuato and Guerrero will wonder if Im with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The bloodless ones stay away. But most of this water has been spent by the Resnicks and other account holders in years two, three, and four of the drought. But farmers Jack Mitchell and Milt Pace are upfront about their distaste for Vidovich and especially Hurley. But why is insulin so expensive in the first place? And so I began with slaughter and madness and then moved on to bartenders for fathers. No. It isnt a lot of water., Im not going to give you the numbers. John Gibler, a freelance journalist, found Lost Hills a year before Lynda. Selling the farm to migrant families has required Lynda to rebrand agriculture. Sandridge Partners, L.P. Business Data If Resnick retains every drop, he might squeeze 25 acre-feet of water a day out of both pipes. The only water Green Valley got was some surplus state water and natural groundwater, Pace said. If youre messing with peoples lives and it doesnt work, thats serious. It had to work. Tens of millions of dollars spent on philanthropy in Lost Hills wasnt just good for the people, she discovered. tupperware garlic keeper g2c advantages and disadvantages. The Sotos made a name for themselves in Lost Hills by taking their taco trucks into the agricultural fields. Surely, no one does this better than Wonderful? The wildfires cant be far behind. Notifications from this discussion will be disabled. He was a big drinker, a big liver who loved the fast life. He paved over the last orchard in the Santa Clara Valley with some apartments and then went looking for another valley where he might build his own empire. They were married only a short time when Manuel decided to cross the border almost 20 years ago. Buried in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, USA. Vidovich owns the property in question, and he is well known in Valley circles. Whos it going to? My grandmother said it was his leftist politics that ate up that vineyard and the ones that followed. Growers a tenth the size of Resnick flee the dust in their Ferraris to their second houses in Carmel. I know I cant do this forever, he says. I enter an equipment yard where a Wonderful farmhand is standing next to a tractor. That little red string is supposed to remind him to count to ten. "Ten percent of farmers get 70 percent of the payment," Perez said. In a swirl of dust, a worker atop a different machine is blowing the almonds from their spot beneath the trees to the middle of the row. Theyre listening with their heads bent down. Being Wonderful means more than growing, harvesting, and distributing the best of the best. To the growers, it must feel like a jab in the stomach. In the late 1970s, he went looking for a hedge against inflation. In a valley of dead rivers, each one killed on behalf of agriculture, the aqueduct was the one river still alive. (Vidovich said he didnt think Sandridge had hit 100,000 acres, total, yet.). The space for a familys secrets is only a few feet. His father bought a neighborhood bar and ran it with the same iron fist with which he ran the house. His many land purchases and involvement on water boards are all about farming, not selling water to L.A. As featured on. A pair of those eyebrows belonged to former farmer and three-term Kings County Supervisor Tony Oliveira, who served from 1999 through 2010 and didn't find out about the upcoming project until Jan. 11. At the east end, where the highway meets Interstate 5, the traveler gets a choice. He indicated that a proposal was currently being drafted for the council's Tuesday night approval. Welcome to San Antonio del Norte, he says. Theres a section stacked with weights and a yoga room with mats on a hardwood floor. Cotton still grows on the lake bottom, but less and less each year. But if he thinks youre defying him, hell start with, Nobody realizes the good Ive done for agriculture. Then he moves on to, Do you know who I am? Anzaldo grew up in Bakersfield and attended a Catholic high school where he played football and basketball. Even if he has access to the California Aqueduct, Vidovich would have to jump through a lot of state hoops to move water independently of Semitropic. And then they pump more groundwater. What he knows is that Wonderful is buying up to 50,000 acre-feet of water a year in a series of hidden deals. The dam ends up holding and the levees, too. Yes. Its gone. He accused Resnick in 2008 of using various shell companies to monopolize control of the Kern Water Bank. She washes two kinds of lettuce and cuts up fresh papaya to mix into a salad. I remind him of the time we spent together eight years earlier in his Sunset House. In fact it should be getting smaller, more sustainable and thats what youre seeing play out on the land right now. Kingdom. There was a majordomo of the house, a butler, a chef, a sous-chef, three housekeepers, a limo driver, and a trio of assistants who worked in the basement, juggling Lyndas calendar and the buying, wrapping, and shipping of gifts she handed out to her Rolodex of highfalutin people. Stewart had made it clear that Lynda would not be joining us. He kept planting more and more trees. "The plan is to hold a special meeting on Tuesday, then submit," he explained to The Leader via a text. He gambled on the price of nuts going up, and he gambled on the water never going dry. Notices were sent to the oversight agencies, including the City of Lemoore, Caltrans, and other relevant agencies. Activate your all-inclusive access for print subscribers: Link your losaltosonline.com account to your print subscription here. Where the pipes butt up against Twisselman Road, a more clever bit of engineering is required. I take a last bite of cauliflower rice. Absolutely not. Im down, Stewart, he protests. I doubt the Resnicks have any idea of the fester that eats at this place, the shame piled on shame. A day later, I get a call from Mr. Resnick. To grow, Big Ag needed a bigger and more dependable supply. On the way out, the voice in their head, Lyndas voice, goads them to give one more hour to the Wonderful Fitness Center. The following is an edited transcript of their conversation. At issue? Thirty-five percent of our pre-diabetic population has gone into the healthy range, she tells the team. No farmer ever is. Sure enough, cozied up next to the bank of the aqueduct, I see a glint. A portion of his wages will be set aside each month to pay down the debt. Resnick has saved the front seat for me. All Rights Reserved. In contrast, John Vidovich, who helms Sandridge, comes from a Silicon Valley farming-turned-developer family. So, capturing that south fork floodwater would benefit both Kings and Kern county farmers, according to Semitropics Gianquinto. Her husband, Manuel, will awaken in 30 minutes to prepare for his night shift. With water from the delta becoming more unreliable, he said, farmers have to hoard land for the groundwater. California had passed a law intended to stop the rising of new towns in the middle of nowhere. All the new water pours into the delta, and what doesnt go out to sea fills up the aqueduct again. The image of water moves on and on through miles of western Kern. On the shallow bottom, the women fished mussels and clams with their toes. You and I look at this meal, he says. They may have been associated with this organization before or after these years as well. "I want to be as open-minded as I can and get all the facts I can," he insisted. Longtime Los Altos resident Stephen John Vidovich, founder of De Anza Properties of Sunnyvale, died of an apparent heart attack June 19 as he was driving a tractor on his property in the Cupertino hills, said his son John Vidovich. Bruce Springsteen turned it into a song on his Ghost of Tom Joad album. It is flowing to a place of dire thirst. A road will pick up and connect me to where the tube is going. Somehow, 30 or 40 nuts arent compelled to drop. Wonderful has enough water to irrigate its orchards in Lost Hills and park tens of thousands of acre-feet in the water bank. He was a small, trim man, no more than 5 foot 5, in his early 70s with thinning silver hair and brown eyes rimmed in pink. But a pipeline, which Vidovich is allowed to build under the Semitropic agreement, could span that distance. He told his neighbors to alter the flight of the bees or hed sue them for trespassing. It gives me the luxury to keep on working. Twine strung trailer to trailer hangs with the laundry of fathers, mothers, and children. Then hed lose his temper and get the strap out.. Fussing with one input or another, he can produce 3,500 pounds of nuts an acre. The continuous rattle feeds the nuts into a series of bins on the backside of the tractor. This is a magnitude of intervention that no other agricultural company in California has ever attempted. Theyre coming up with ideas that might lead to an even bigger drop in the number of employees with diabetes. The price for pistachios has climbed from $4.50 a pound to an unbelievable $5.25 a pound. Hes a decent guy making $216,000 a year who doesnt pretend that he isnt beholden to Wonderful. Shes designing the curriculum.. He makes $10.50 an hour, and the company provides him with a 401(k) plan and medical insurance. Both GSAs, along with three others in the Tulare Lake subbasin, submitted a single joint groundwater plan. My health, knock on wood, is good. His accountant suggested he buy apartments. 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. Vicente Fernndez, the king of Ranchera music, is crooning to no one, but it wont be this way in 30 minutes, Hussein tells me. I walk to another part of the orchard and watch phase two. Theyre dusty with San Joaquin dirt. 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. Im sure I knew we had a pipeline in there. 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. I sort of remember growing up on a farm, he said. His face is still blank. The aqueduct was built with tax money, yes? What happens to them if Wonderful downsizes? I turn back around and find Route 46, the road that killed James Dean. 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. 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 curtains were made of a fabric woven in Venice and substantial enough that they might finish off a person who happened to be looking out the window in the throes of an earthquake. The citrus is still handpicked but all the nuts are machine picked, and thats idled workers as well. The men and women who planted, irrigated, sprayed, and picked our crops were phantoms. Share with Us. Once his parents decided to go, he decided to go, too. What to give a grieving widow and her five children in Lost Hills but drinking water? When its Pablos turn, he hands Hussein a check for $437, and Hussein counts out $433 back to him in cash. The Kings is bone-dry as usual. A good deal of sunshine. She was a very frugal lady. 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. Im not going to live forever, even with the massive amounts of pomegranate juice Im drinking. For just $5/month, you can help sustain Marketplace so we can keep reporting on the things that matter to you. Marketplace host Amy Scott spoke with Mark Arax, who wrote an articlein The California Sunday Magazine about the Wonderful Companys farming business and issues of sustainability in the Central Valley. So its a really extraordinary kind of development thats never happened in agriculture in California before really to raise the living of your workers. He could collect the rents while he slept.