The State is Going Nuts in Battle Over Water in the Central Valley

Water and Power the California Heist from National Geographic. This is a documentary first released in the spring of 2017 and available on Netflix. It tracks details of the Monterrey Amendments from 1994. This policy allowed Central Valley farmers, to be the current ecologically stewards of California’s water shed. It is a state policy to send water to southern California and to water bank it in aquifers for drought years. The film chronicles how Stewart Resnick bought dry useless land and turned it around with the Monterrey Amendment and has made billions from it. Resnick has become rich from land and water thus he runs Paramount farms and the Wonderful Company. He controls virtually all the almonds, pistachios and pomegranates in the in the US. Does the state need so much water for a few nuts? It is said it takes a gallon of water to produce one almond. Eighty to 90% of all California’s water is for agriculture and most of those goods are shipped out. So the next time the state says stop using water look to Stewart Resnick’s almonds and the rest of the US eating lettuce. Resnick’s firms and other Central Valley farming water bankers are controlling the water in these aquifers and are also trading it for a profit. Including pumping it to other areas, or farms they control, yet this is public water. The cost to others is double the pumpers costs. Additionally, taking all this water from aquifers is causing gigantic sink holes. These sinkholes in some cases are massive and take up miles of land and improvements on that land. It has been chronicled for decades what the drilling of water has done to the valley. The film is not just about the past but also about the future of water in the State. The same problem is taking place in Paso Robles in San Luis Obispo County. Big money firms are buying land to plant wine grapes. Some of the new growers Harvard for one says they don’t want the land or the grapes just the water, and the control of its distribution. Paso Robles used to have a huge aquifer beneath it but now it is dwindling. This is a democratic problem in a democratic state. Resnick is a huge Democratic donor to Hillary Clinton and many state candidates. This water heist is a disaster in the making. The ones who will lose has been the poor, and it will continue. Many small towns like Lost Pines has no municipal water, and wells are running dry, because an almond grower has sucked it all up So we ask do we really need that many almonds. Wouldn't banking that water be better served for public? If you have seen ads about California almonds, Wonderful Pistachios, POM Wonderful well those are Resnick’s firms.