Fact Check: The Resnicks Do Not Own 'Most of California's Water'
Photo courtesy of the Wonderful Company and UCLA.
This article was originally published in Daily Kos on January 18, 2025.
by Dan Bacher
As a longtime researcher on the operations of Stewart and Lynda Resnick, billionaire owners of the Wonderful Company, I have to point out that a number of false memes and media reports have been circulated widely about the amount of water the Resnicks control.
For example, a Facebook post by Dolores Peers stated: “The Resnicks have ownership of most of California's water. No single entity should own most of the water in any state. Water should be publicly owned.”
Likewise, the More Perfect Union proclaims on their podcast: “One billionaire couple owns almost all the water in California”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SU9A0mwdhE
Here are the actual facts: the Resnicks, the largest orchard fruit growers in the world and major players in state and national politics, own a 57 percent stake in the Kern Water Bank, not "most of California's water” or “almost all the water in California.”
The Kern Water Bank has a capacity of 1.5 million acre feet of water. But up to 6.68 million acre feet of water from the Delta have been exported annually to agribusiness and water agencies in any year through the State Water Project and Central Valley Project.
Water managers reduce export targets in dry years and increase them during wet years. The record water export year was in 2011, when 6.68 million acre feet of water was exported by the state and federal water projects: https://viewperformance.deltacouncil.ca.gov/pm/water-exports
The second largest water export year was in 2017, when 6.46 million acre feet of water was exported by the State Water Project and Central Valley Project. Both 2011 and 2017 were wet years.
5.39 million acre feet of water was exported by both projects in 2023, a wet year. 3.66 million acre feet of water was exported in 2020. 1.65 million acre feet of water was exported in 2021 and 2.18 million acre feet of water was exported in 2022, both drought years.
Overall, water exports from the Delta account for about 8% of the water used in the entire state (Delta Plan, p. 75).
Fish advocates believe that the maximum amount of Delta water that can be exported in any one year without significant impact on the aquatic ecosystem is 3 million acre feet. Yet the average amount that has been exported in recent years is around 5 million acre feet.
Due to these massive water exports and other factors, including drought, pollution, toxics and invasive species, Central Valley salmon and Delta fish populations are in their worst-ever crisis now. Salmon fishing in California ocean and river waters has been closed for two years and the Delta smelt has become functionally extinct in the wild.
I have exposed this massive diversion of Delta water for over three decades in hundreds of articles, beginning with interviewing CDFW biologist Frank Fisher who established the relationship between the dramatic collapse of winter run Chinook salmon and increased export pumping from the Delta back in 1992. He coined the term "Black Hole of Death" to describe the entrapment of salmon caused by reverse flows spurred by the state and federal pumping facilities.
California's interconnected water system serves almost 40 million people and irrigates over 5,680,000 acres of farmland. As the world's largest and most controversial water system, it manages over 40 million acre-feet of water per year.
Again, 57 percent of 1.5 million feet of water out of 40 million acre feet of water is NOT most of the state's water.
I completely support the statement that "water should be publicly owned." Nobody should be allowed to own a 57 percent stake in a water bank supplied by the State Water Project.
The Resnicks have donated many millions of dollars to both the Democratic and Republican parties and to candidates for both parties over the years. They were instrumental in the creation of the Monterey Amendment, a 1994 pact between Department of Water Resources and State Water Project contractors, that allowed them to obtain their 57 percent stake in the Kern Water Bank: https://www.watereducation.org/aquapedia/monterey-amendment
The Resnicks are among the largest contributors to Gavin Newsom and in fact hosted his 2022 anti-recall campaign in a fundraising letter. In 2019 they made a donation of $750 million to CalTech and in 2022 made a $50 million donation to UC Davis, in addition to contributing millions to UCLA, CSU Fresno and other universities over the years.
The Resnicks have donated a total of $431,600 to Governor Gavin Newsom since 2018, including $250,000 to Stop The Republican Recall Of Governor Newsom and $64,800 to Newsom For California Governor 2022.
Newsom received a total of $755,198 in donations from agribusiness in the 2018 election cycle, based on the data from www.followthemoney.org. That figure includes a combined $116,800 from Stewart and Lynda Resnick and $58,400 from E.J. Gallo, combined with $579,998 in the agriculture donations category.
The Resnicks have pushed for increased water exports from the Delta for agribusiness and the construction of the Delta Tunnel for many years.
But the fact is the Resnicks do not own most of California's water supply.