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Each tree produces 22 pounds of nuts. Bernard, hard to believe, is driving straight toward the aqueduct. But you take some risks in business. What to give a grieving widow and her five children in Lost Hills but drinking water? Now its the Bobcats turn. The parents of Vidovi and Mohat were featured in a documentary film titled Mentor, which premiered on December 9, 2014. No stranger enters this zone unless its to get rid of a body or dump waste from cooking meth or drown a hot car. This last-ditch water in Lost Hills wont make everything right. As the growers punch more holes into the ground looking for a vanishing resource, the earth is sinking. He blames Iran. The nuts are kept there a few more daysany longer and the ants will attack themto complete their drying. He guides me back into the main store with its displays of fresh fruit and vegetables, meats, cold cuts, and baked goods. Includes Address (3) Phone (3) Email (1) See Results. In his best Borscht Belt nasal, he takes a jab. On the shallow bottom, the women fished mussels and clams with their toes. A skill his detractors say hes used to maneuver water away from its rightful place to his own benefit. The boss showed him a storeroom filled with chemicals tossed here and there and told him to bring order to the mess. This amounted to 14,000 acre-feet. Halfway through his solo performance, he interrupted his set to tell us a piggy bank had been set up by the exit to donate money to the hardworking men and women in the fields. When the concert was over, I took my wife and children backstage to meet him. Fiefdom. As we sat down to chat, one of his assistants leaned over and whispered into his jewel-studded ear. And Vidovich ended up pumping water an extraordinary amount of water out of. Theyre droughts best buddies.. Vidovich made an offer on the land and Page took it. The wildfires cant be far behind. Six hundred pistachio growers in blue jeans isnt her usual crowd. The following is an edited transcript of their conversation. So how do we do even better next year?. The growers would stand in front of the cull line and never stop moaning about how much of their fruit got rejected by Girazians graders. Because its so much fun to say that Lost Hills has been found., The room full of growers applauds. By Lois Henry The large, black pipe could be seen earlier this month being tucked into the ground along 21st Avenue just south of Highway 198 and west of Lemoore. Even the community water tank is painted baby blue with a big sunflower. I find a former partner of Resnick. It makes interesting reading. Theyre paying $340 a month for its privilege. Vidovich went home with $74 million in his pocket. It becomes scorn because they cant allow it to become pity or self-hatred. I saw her a few months ago. Lessons? he says, sounding perplexed. In exchange, the state would get banking rights in Semitropic, said General Manager Jason Gianquinto. Lived In Aliquippa PA, Monaca PA. Related To Michele Vidovich, Amy Vidovich. To read more copy and paste or select. Everyone knew where it was going. He owns the land next to the aqueduct where the reservoir would be built and is the one who brought the floodwater project idea to Semitropic a few years ago. The Mojave Water Agency in the high desert needed a backup supply to serve its growing communities of Barstow and Apple Valley, Hesperia and Victorville. All I know is I dont want to split it up or sell it in some leveraged buyout. Its not true, he wants to farm.. He landed a steady job with a big grower and a year later paid a coyote $5,000 to bring Lupe and their baby son to Lost Hills. About five years ago, Lynda started our community development organization in Lost Hills, and the journey has been an amazing one. It took time to gain the respect of the people, and I was afraid. This doesnt count the 21,000 acres of grapefruits and limes hes growing in Texas and Mexico. Vidovich digs 17 new wells, several to the depth of 1,400 feet, and pumps groundwater into ditches and canals that move the flow across miles of flat lake bed. High 53F. Im 80 years old. It was the same distance that allows them to control more land and water130 billion gallons a yearthan any other man and woman in California and still believe it isnt enough. Water is what led me to Stewart Resnick in the winter of 2003. As we hop down from the van to inspect the pomegranates on the eve of harvest, Resnick motions to Bernards belly. On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading. They were farmers back in San Antonio, growing lettuce, cilantro, and radishes on a small plot of land. The fog is our history. Farmers near Pixley already have sued him once for taking too much water out of their ground and moving it. The continuous rattle feeds the nuts into a series of bins on the backside of the tractor. The project would consist of a small reservoir, more like short-term storage cells, along the California Aqueduct just north of Kettleman City where floodwater off the south fork of the Kings River would be captured. Thank you for reading! Section, block, and row dont compute; he has to direct me by cellphone and guideposts. It comes out like pee, says her 11-year-old daughter. Fallowing the farm until the footprint gets smaller and smaller. Vidovich didnt have to wait long for a buyer to come calling. What Lynda seems to have in mind is a kind of utopian village set amid orchards, not unlike the utopias that were tried by the early dreamers of Southern California. The Iranians dont irrigate their trees. "We're just in the preliminary parts of planning for this," he said. To grow, Big Ag needed a bigger and more dependable supply. If I want to know more, I need to talk to Lupes brother, Gustavo, who has worked as an irrigator at Wonderful for five years and knows what the company is planning for the future. Even so, Resnick says, he learned a lesson from the 2004 recall of 13 million pounds of the companys salmonella-tainted almonds: Dont fight the FDA. 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. Every time I see it, Im inspired and proud of what weve been able to accomplish in such a short amount of time. Yeah, hes got a lot of money and hes been buying up land, makes some people nervous, Page said. Lynda is also mapping out a farm-to-food program where students will grow fruits, vegetables, and grains on a plot of village land. After Vidovich sold his Dudley Ridge state water, Pace said he drilled several wells in Green Valley, built a pipeline across I-5 and took the valleys groundwater to keep his Dudley Ridge trees alive. He recalled bidding on a construction project while studying for the bar exam. A flour tortilla. It was a permanent water loss for Kings County and put Vidovich under a lingering cloud of suspicion among area farmers and water managers. At the east end, where the highway meets Interstate 5, the traveler gets a choice. Theyre dusty with San Joaquin dirt. During the drought, the Boswell Company has drilled 52 holes into the old lake bottomseven of these wells reaching a depth of 2,500 feet. The bunches of chartreuse-tipped nuts hanging from antler branches never touch the ground. That was eight or nine years ago. He accused Resnick in 2008 of using various shell companies to monopolize control of the Kern Water Bank. 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. He was semi-retired living in Clovis when another Kings County farmer, Pat McCarthy not Vidovich called him to do some work for Angiola. Vidovich John - De Anza Properties is located at: 960 N San Antonio Rd, Los Altos, California 94022. The court settlement allows him to take the water to Dudley Ridge, but it cant go outside Kings County. Whether its the glint of a 15-carat, yellow canary diamond ring, a 25th wedding anniversary gift from Stewart, or one of the pomegranate-colored rubies she says are a girls best friend, its hard to tell from the back row. In the trailer next door, Lupes cousin Margarita lives with her husband, Selfo, and their three young children. According to some observers, the facility is expected to hold a 1,000-cow feedlot (which can be developed upwards of 12,500 animals) and a slaughterhouse at the proposed site, within spitting distance of the city of Lemoore and West Hills College Lemoore. And one Kern County water district could be the linchpin to it all. What do you need to know, sir?, Whats it been like here during the drought?, Drought, no drought, makes no difference. Posted on August 6, 2018 Bakersfield Californian. And in fact these guys were able to squeeze and buy water in the open market, and do a few other things to keep their crops going and they were in the midst of drought. From now on, theyll grow on land that offers a double protection against drought. More often than not, it is hauling away some piece of the valleys bounty. Ever since I was a kid, I have felt its pulla gravitational presence on the land and in my own story. The way the Bobcat goes full steam, it takes but a few seconds of splendid violence to uproot a tree. At the plant, we built our gyms, and we have stretching and walking activities. Of all the property available in Kings County, I'm not sure why he chose that property. Look, I delegate a lot of things, obviously. But Paramount isnt Paramount anymore. Twenty miles outside Fresno, I cross the Kings, the river that irrigates more farmland than any other river here. We're not trying to stop enterprise, okay," he added, suggesting that Lemoore's citizens, over the years, have invested heavily in Lemoore and might have problems with a feedlot and slaughterhouse within shouting distance of the city's population. More than one ballad was about the valley, so he came to Fresno. What is the phone number of Vidovich John - De Anza Properties? Lost Hills sits on an upslope. Its known as a census-designated place, which is another way of saying that Kern County has every reason to neglect it. He emptied the sky of tens of millions of geese and drained the 800 square miles of Tulare Lake dry. A judge found this past March that the initiative was flawed because Vidovich used his own project description instead of the neutral description by the Cupertino city attorney. We want good groundwater, too., You mean no more pipelines carrying water in the dead of night?, The pipeline. He stammers a bit. Thats our goal. Central Californias family raisin farms are drying up, Commercial bees, the unsung heroes of the nut business, Drought has California farms destroying crops, rather than pay for water, A California farm battles drought: Were out here trying to survive, Farm country frets over impact of John Deere strike, Inside the trial of Theranos Elizabeth Holmes, Californias drought takes a toll on the states clothing manufacturers, Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on. At the time we were handing out college scholarships in the valley, but Lynda decided it wasnt nearly enough. A year and a half after hearing Sandeland in the wake of Giblers storyLynda kicked into high gear their mission to save Lost Hills and several other farmworker towns where Wonderful operated its orchards and processing plants. So beginning in the 1940s, Kern farmers went out and grabbed a share of not one distant river but two: the San Joaquin to the north and the Sacramento to the north of that. Youve read the 0 free articles available to you. "I want to be as open-minded as I can and get all the facts I can," he insisted. He maneuvers down the middle of the row, sweeps up the dried almonds, and throws them into a catcher. This is the domain of Stewart Resnick, the richest farmer in the country and maybe the most peculiar one, too. But his egotheres no controlling that., Resnick had heard it all before. Stewart and Lynda created a new brand, the Halo, from the same variety of mandarin. This drought has brought Stewart to his knees. How much bigger can agriculture get. As a class of people, the farmers and real estate developers harbor a deep-down contempt for what they have built. Vidovich continues to run De Anza and in a surprisingly hands-on manner. They greet me with smiles and handshakes. Burglar alarms, on the other hand, offered round-the-clock vigilance without coffee breaks. I thwack both lines. But those deals were one water district selling to another water district. The believer and the skeptic do their tussle inside my head. Thats when the Resnicks decided to sell the concept of wellness to their 4,300 employees throughout the valley the same way they sell workplace safety. He says he doesnt feel sorry for Resnick. Subscribers support the Los Altos Town Crier please log in or subscribe to continue reading. SGMA refers to the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act passed in 2014 that mandates water basins be in balance by 2040. Vidovich is known in the area for his political activity as well as his development projects. The concept changed the industry. The biggest farmer of them all is tearing out 10,000 acres because he doesnt have enough water to cover the nuts to harvest. Right there in the big canal of the Dudley Ridge Water District. The abundance of that water in good years has created this overreach of agriculture. John, his oldest son, had served in the military as an intelligence officer and graduated from Santa Clara law school. 650) 397-5213 with any questions or to learn more. Still, none of it would have happened without luck., What he and Lynda had done with the wretched pomegranate was another matter. The new plantings arent cotton, alfalfa, or carrotsthe crops a farmer can decide not to seed when water becomes scarce. The net return on the pistachio proves that Wonderfuls dominance in the market has benefited every grower in the room. First of all, the myriad laws and rules that govern water wouldnt allow that to happen, they say. He needs every drop he can get., Dont you know? Mostly, though, they cant wait for the avalanche of nuts to end. In any event, Vidovich fallowed his Angiola land and took its groundwater about 25 miles west to his Dudley Ridge lands. I roll past Tulare, where every February they hold the biggest tractor show in the world, even bigger than the one in Paris. Their concern is where Vidovich is taking the groundwater. Kings County Supervisor Joe Neves, whose district would contain the proposed feedlot and slaughterhouse, suggests that the process for approval is just beginning. His father was 3 years old at the time. I dont know. To provide context for the size of his subsidy, Vidovich estimated that the current California drought, which has led him to irrigate an additional 24,000 acres, will cost his business tens of millions of dollars this year, while the subsidy brought in $1 million. You cant reverse diabetes, but you can control it with a blood sugar level between 6.5 and 8. Resnick wanted no part in my story. One of the most dramatic alterations of the earths surface in human history took place here. He had moved out to Long Beach, bought some property, and built one of those new strip malls. Rain for Rent, the pipes say. You get exempted from the companys wellness program? Bernard has actually lost a few pounds. Already, they are paying $69 a month to the local utility district. Hes a 61-year-old developer who grew up on a farm in Sunnyvale in the heart of what would become the Silicon Valley. His real estate empire became big enough to bring aboard each of his four children. I do all the calculations from the numbers I am able to gather, and I cannot figure out how these nuts are getting enough water. Have we gone too far? I gaze out the passenger window, looking for the glint of the pipeline. They both knew what they wanted. He turns out to be a kindly religious man whose short hair is dyed the black of shoe polish. I thank him and hurry down the dirt road through the almonds, eyeing the rearview mirror to see if a Resnick truck is following me. Residential. The city manager is in the process of coordinating a response, "said Gornick. Across the street, the Soto family has built a new Mexican restaurant named Gabbys that dwarfs every other business on the street with its Spanish Mission faade. Id have to say that fully half of my success has been luck. This is the route my grandfather, one of a legion of fruit tramps, took as he drifted from farm to farm in the 1920s picking crops. Then he motions to Lynda, whos standing off to the side of the light-dimmed stage. For the next two or three seconds, the almonds pour down like hail. I sit in my car and wait in the parking lot. But thats not an issue I deal with., I dont even know what it was, to be honest with you.. I want to know that what we built will continue into the future.. His account appeared in the Earth Island Journal, a small environmental quarterly out of Berkeley. On this same stretch of 99, I once wrote a story about farmworkers who moonlighted as meth cookers to make ends meet. On one side of the road and the other, for miles in both directions, the dirt belongs to Wonderful. When Lynda learned that half the students receiving thousands of dollars in company scholarships were dropping out of school, she wasnt deterred. They spend $50 a month on bottled water. He needs nearly 1,000 acre-feet a day for 165 daysthe length of nut-growing seasonto hang a good crop across his acres in western Kern. He had an industrial machine, hardly used, that scrubbed and waxed floors. Activate your all-inclusive access for print subscribers: Link your losaltosonline.com account to your print subscription here. If he were on the scene today, hed have to add sashed Queens to the list.