By William Silveira
Lynda and Stewart Resnick, the wealthy landowners I mentioned in Friday’s column – the couple who are irrigating desert land in Lost Hills – made the Los Angeles Times yesterday. In an op-ed column entitled “The Fate of the Salmon Is a Grim Indicator of Our Future,” author James Pogue notes that immense power is wielded in Sacramento by large agribusiness interests and their lobbyists. He mentions the Resnicks specifically as “the Beverly Hills-based planter billionaires” and notes that they “have donated more than $350,000 to Governor [Gavin] Newsome since 2018.” The following instructive paragraph immediately follows the mention of the Resnicks:
By William Silveira
A friend on the East Coast recently sent me a link to the New York Times article “The Central California Town That Keeps Sinking” [by Lois Henry, May 25]. Its opening sounds a siren:
CORCORAN, Calif. — In California’s San Joaquin Valley, the farming town of Corcoran has a multimillion-dollar problem. It is almost impossible to see, yet so vast it takes NASA scientists using satellite technology to fully grasp.
Corcoran is sinking.
[You can read the whole article here, after I provide a context for you.]
When it comes to water
By William Silveira
The public here in California and in the rest of the country are continually bombarded with claims that not enough water is available to irrigate farms in California’s Central Valley. Among the loudest of theses voices is that of the Westlands Water District, which contracts with the federal government and the State of California for water for farms in that district.
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