The Dollop with Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds - 356 -The Resnicks: Water Monsters

Episode Date: December 11, 2018

Comedians Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds examine the Resnicks, their businesses, and their enjoyment of the water in California. SOURCESTOUR DATES OFFICIAL MERCHThe Kickstarter The TED Talk

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American History podcast each week. I, drinker of water, washer with water. Oh boy. You can think of a third water you surely. Shuffler and water! Dave Anthony, read your story from American history to his friend. Gareth Reynolds who has no idea what the topic is about. You can watch video of this podcast on the All Things Comedy YouTube page and now just shut your mouth Aaron. There'll be no more demands. Wow. You heard him back there. It got weird. When is the intro coming in? Now the quote is jam-packed. Jam-packed? I'm the fucking hippo guy. Dave, okay. My name's Gary. My name's Gary. Wait. Is it for fun? And this is not going to come to Tigglypodcast. Okay. This is like an up-five-part coefficient. My room's a place! Now hit him with a puppy. You both present sick arguments. Don't sleep though, hippo. That's like though, hippo. Actually, part-time. Hi, Gary. No. I sleep done, my friend. No. No. Ronda, Ronda, it's not fun. Broader in the court. Broader. I swear. I mean, great work passed me. What? Put it on again.

Jam-packed. Oh. Play it again. Yeah, play it again. Play it one more time. Get to the Broader in the court. Just, boom. Because that's you? It's very funny what I said back then. December 24th, 1936, the year of our lord, A.D. Christmas Eve in 1936. Yeah. Okay. That's when all the shit, that's when the best shit was happening. Sure. Stewart Resnick was born in Middlebush, New Jersey. It's the middle of the bush. Sure. His father owned a bar. He was a tough guy, a big drinker, and a gambler. Stewart once came home and the family car was gone. Dad had lost it in a bet. Wow. That's how much of a gambler he was. Yeah. So he lived on the edge. They never knew if they're gonna have a home or not. Or a car.

Right. You could get lost in a game even. Yeah. Yeah. Quote, he was tough on the outside, but inside he had these weaknesses. It's a nice thing to say about your pop. Yeah. I was thinking you would maybe have a little more upside as far as like, but inside he had a good heart. But inside he was really weak. His will was weak. He was terrible, awful on the inside. Yeah. Stewart's friends were all from upper-class families. He was the only poor one. Now when Stewart was in his first year of college at Rutgers, the family got a call from an uncle in California. Mm-hmm. He'd gotten into building strip malls and said it was easy money. Oh, God. How many times have you heard that? Get into the strip mall business. It's super easy.

I would relish living in a time where people were like, strip malls? I don't know if that's gonna work out instead of now where it's like. All strip malls. Yeah. The family headed out west. Stewart went to UCLA and joined a fraternity. Oh, that's so fun. Now one of his frat brothers, his dad had a janitorial business and Stewart and his friend bought a machine from him that scrubbed and waxed floors. Okay. Soon they had a cleaning business. Okay. Stewart then bought out his buddy because it was doing so well and the buddy didn't really care. It is to good will cleaning. Yeah. I don't like it when Aaron gets up. Look at him. So the business takes off. Okay. Pretty soon he's got two trucks and crews. Remember, he's still a student at UCLA. Sure.

When he graduated from UCLA in 1960, he was making 40k a year, which today would be about 320,000 dollars. Jesus. Okay. That's a lot. It's a lot. You can make like Van Wilder. When I got out of college, I was like, what kind of top ramen am I getting? Yeah. And in college. Yeah. When he noticed. What was your ramen flavor? Oh, it's chicken. Shrimp. Really? Yeah, which people, I guess, it's like a scarlet letter. Yeah, it's bad. Yeah. It's such a supportive person. Yeah, I'm not. Not on that. Not on shrimp. No. But it's just, it's just the idea of flavored shrimp in a packet. Just no. I don't want the flavor of shrimp. When you eat shrimp, I'm eat shrimp. I don't want the flavor of shrimp. That sounds like a way to tell someone to fuck off. Hey, why don't you go eat shrimp?

Tell this guy to go eat some shrimp, would you? Hey, why don't you go eat some shrimp flavoring, buddy? Well, you either come over here and get your teeth knocked out. Go eat shrimp. He noticed when he was cleaning, buildings at night, that there were no guards. So he decided to sell the cleaning business and he started a security guard business. And become the bad guy from diet. No, okay. He started a security guard business. He sold his cleaning business for 2.5 million. And he's like early 20s. Yeah, he's just out of law school now. Wow. Okay, so a little later. Okay. So Linda, no, Linda Ray Harris was born in 1942 and raised in Philadelphia. Okay. Hey, Phil, how you doing? Nobody supports this. He, her dad was a film distributor. And when she was

15, her dad moved to LA to be a movie producer. So Linda and Stuart, Stuart and Linda. Okay, right. So her dad produced The Blob, a 1958 cult movie, one of the best. A great movie. One of the best. My favorite movie about gelatin eating people. By far. The best one. It's that and the rest. Of all the gelatin movies. Yeah. Top. Yeah. It cost $240,000 to make and eventually grossed more than a hundred times that. So he's rolling it. Yeah. Linda was now a kid living in Beverly Hills. After high school, she wanted to go to art school, but her father refused to help with tuition. So instead she got a job working in a dress shop. The blob man was like, I'm not going to help you go to school. Yeah, he was cool. Okay. If he had done that, none of this might have happened.

Well, I don't know what's about to happen. But she started making ads for the store and was very good at it. Okay. So she went into, she went to working in advertising. Okay, great. And while she's doing all this, up until you're creating a great sort of character type, someone who grew up in Beverly Hills with money and then went into advertising. I mean, if you meet this person, get next to him at a party, you're going to want to hear about them. So while she's doing all this, she got married and had kids, right? So by the time she was 24, Linda had started her own advertising agency called Linda limited and was divorced with three kids. Interesting. Okay. So that's a lot of it's a lot. It's a different time. Yeah, a lot's going on

early because now if you're 24, you're like, man, when am I going to move out? Yeah. Now you're like, well, man, when am I going to get that shrimp ramen? Love it. He's just a regular person is like, man, that's shrimpy ramen. There about that. Yum, yum, yum. So at this point, Stuart Resnick was also divorced and had three kids. Wait a minute. He needed some advertising. Here's a story of a man named Stuart. Yeah. Oh boy. Yeah. He needs some advertising work and someone recommended Linda. Okay. They were married in 1973. Okay. Stuart's guard company landed a big contract to handle security at LAX. All right. They guarded incoming international airplanes until the planes could be inspected by customs. Okay. Three of the airport guards were arrested

selling two pounds of heroin. That's illegal. Back then it was. Okay. Stuart said it was a few bad apples in the company and they had already been fired. Okay. Yeah. But the federal organized crime and racketeering strike force started investigating the company for, quote, possible infiltration of airport security by organized crime. Wow. The LA Times, quote, during the seven, during the five month investigation that led to the arrest, several of the suspects told undercover agents they had access to a large supply as much as a hundred pounds at a time of the Oriental heroin, which they said was being shipped into this country on commercial airlines. And that gives the undercover guys some information that shows that maybe heroin is being

brought into the country legally through them. Right. Okay. A little bit. So it's a successful sting operation. Yeah. Like when you're going through that, you're like, hey, man, why'd you get such a huge boner just now? He's like, nothing. Just keep talking more to my chest. Stuart sold the business movement to the alarm business because there's no guards. Okay. Then he sold the alarm company for a hundred million. So now it's where the hundred million. Yeah. He's kind of moving up in the world. Yeah. So they got into agriculture in 1978 buying 2,500 acres of orange trees in Kern County, California. Hmm. I'm a little bit of a switch. Yeah. And I'm also, I'm a little, now I'm starting to be suspect because I don't like

the numbers that are being thrown out as I do the math. The state was experiencing a horrible drought and they were able to get the land cheap. Stuart, quote, they were selling 2,500 acres of oranges and lemons and a packing house for a third of their praised value. It was simply a place to park some money and have another opportunity. I think it paid 9 million. I think I paid 9 million. I think... Yeah. I may kind of remember 9 or 10. It's hard to keep track of the millions. Yeah. Like it's like a backpack you bought on Craigslist. I think it's 13. I can't remember. In 1978, they bought Telefora, a flower delivery company. Hmm. Linda turned into a very lucrative business by selling the flowers in a glass vase or a teapot or with a

teddy bear, some other shit. It was said she revolutionized the flower delivery service. God. So stupid. Yeah. So she's like... A teapot? Oh my God. You're going to sell something else with flowers? Oh my Lord. This woman's a genius. I don't know how she thought of this. Wait, a teddy bear with the flowers? Oh, please. Let me lay down on this couch. No, get a wet rag. Oh my Lord. I'm going to pass out. Flowers in a teapot. My two favorite things. So now they have a parent company called Roll International. On November 4, 1979, a group of Iranian students stormed the US embassy in Tehran, taking more than 60 American hostages. President Carter imposed sanctions on Iran. Iran had long

been known for producing the world's best pistachios. Very buttery, very yummy. Everybody loves an Iranian pistachio. Is this seriously being highlighted for a reason or you're just... Okay. Now... Now... Hold on. Yeah. They have the best pistachios? Yeah. Very buttery pistachios. Yeah. I'm going to show you. This is the Resnicks. This is the couple. Oh my God. They're older. I couldn't find the young pictures of them, but they are... They look like now. Well, she's got that, you know, kind of maybe a little nip tuck going on. Whereas he's like, I'm aging. She's like, I'm 20 still. So now pistachios can't be sold in America, right? Because they're sanctions. Okay. So the Resnicks opportunity. And with a horrendous drought that had occurred in 1976

and 1977 in California, oil companies like Mobile and Texaco are trying to dump their pistachio and almond orchards that they own for cheap. Okay. These were huge 20,000 and 40,000 acre plots of land. So they bought more and more acreage through the 80s. Stuart and Linda did. Okay. For rock bottom prices. Droughts always made land more affordable. In 1986, they bought Franklin Mint, a commemorative coin and medallion business for $167.5 million. Linda turned it into something much bigger, diving into jewelry dolls, model cars soon. I put some of the coins in a teapot. But she did something like this. She bought at auction, Jackie Kennedy's pearls that she always wore, which were apparently fake. And she bought them at auction for $210,000.

And everyone in the world made fun of her. There's actually a doer's ad made about her that was like, did you just buy fake pearls for $210,000? You needed doers. It's time for doers. And then she made like fucking 50 million off of selling replicas. So she, yeah. So they made a shit. What up now, doers? Where are you now, doers? How about printing a retraction? So pretty soon, annual sales of the Franklin Mint hit $1 billion. My God. And presidents kept pushing for tougher sanctions on Iran. And the residents kept buying farmland. By the end of the 80s, the residents had 100,000 acres. In 1987, they bought 18,000 acres from Prudential Life Insurance. Part of that was 180 acres of pomegranates. These enormous companies

just owned and like huge plots, either for nuts or... I don't know. Look, I know the oil companies had it because they wanted the oil that was under the ground. And then they're also like, why don't we also have a farm, like just use the land to make money? That's cute. I don't know why an insurance company would have a farmland... All right, boys. That's 1230 water and break. Get out there now, boys. Get out there, get them nuts off them trees and sell some life insurance. Come on, guys. Why don't the pomegranates? So they had 180 acres of pomegranates. He was going to rip them up, but one of his workers was like, just keep them and see what happens. Keep them. They're like a puzzle that you can eat. So water in California is a big deal.

Oh, no. Is this where we're headed? Oh, shit. And the way it works is a fucking mess. The state's laws were designed to settle the frontier. So there's a first guy gets in, gets the water rights rule. So the first guy to get to wherever gets to own the water. So we have it as like the Black Friday rules, essentially. It's fucking ridiculous. And one guy, this guy named Miller literally went and just fucking got all the water in the state at one point. Like, he just got everything. He owned like all the fucking water at one point. So it's called senior rights, right? Those are senior rights. Okay. Most senior water rights claims are the last to be restricted during droughts. So if you have senior water rights and there's a drought

on, you still get water and other people don't. Oh, Dave. So some farmers can still flood their fields while residents of towns like Oakieville and East Porterville have to truck in water. So East Porterville has no water whatsoever and they have to truck in all their water. Right. That's where that's a situation there where farmers get to pump their water. Also, large urban areas would get water over many farmers. So like L.A. and San Francisco get water over a lot of the farmers. Right. Okay. But it's super complicated. In 1960, California created the state water project, the SWP. It takes water from rivers in the north and sends it to the dry south through aquatics, pipelines and tunnels. You've seen that when you drove out of the five.

There's a big, big aqueduct, but it was never completed. Okay. It's supposed to deliver 4.23, sorry, 4.23 million acres of water a year, but has only been able to deliver 2.4 million acres of water because it's not fully done. Okay. So when droughts happen, the SWP rules say water should go to urban areas first and farms could get cut off and have to use aquifers. That seems smart. So Kern County, where most of the Resnick's land is, gets water, a lot of water from the SWP and then another organization. But in 1988, the Department of Water Resources bought an aquifer along the Kern River to store surplus water for drought years. So they bought this huge piece of land. Okay. Underneath is just this giant aquifer. Okay. And in that, they're going to store

water, right? Here it is. Okay. Well, it looks very fertile. Yeah. So it's called the Kern Water Bank. Okay. In plus years, you just keep dumping water in there. When there's a drought, you can take it out, right? Right, right. Cost to savings account. Yeah. It's a water savings account. Yeah. If that helps, does that help? It helps Aaron. It costs the state $74 million. Okay. Which would be like $140 million today. So after a couple more droughts, Stuart, Resnick, and others were unhappy. They weren't getting all the water they wanted. Dave, I have a feeling I'm about to really not like Stuart and Linda. Now, they had junior water rights. So that's senior guys are ahead of them. Okay. Right. And they had to get around them. So a

lawsuit was threatened against the DWR, Department of Water Resources, who has the bank. And it's led by Stuart. It's a coalition of guys led by Stuart. And they said the state wasn't delivering the 4.23 million acres of water it was supposed to, which is true. It's not because it can't, because it's not fully built. Right. So the DWR and the coalition had a secret meeting in Monterey, California, where Stuart Resnick proposed a solution. I don't know. California could give the water bank to the West Side Mutual Water Company, which is just a thing Stuart owns, and five water districts of all big ag, big, big ag guys. Okay. The West Side Mutual Water Company is owned by the Resnicks and all the water districts are controlled by agribusiness, including Paramount,

which is the Resnick's farm company. So not only is he going to get, he's not only one of the six, but then he also controls another one. So he's two of the six, really. In return, the Resnicks would give up their junior water rights, which is water that doesn't exist anyway. So they are sacrificing nothing to get a ton. So they're threatening to sue because they're not getting water that doesn't exist, because it's never been built into the system. But the system at the beginning was legally supposed to send that much water down. So they're saying, so from zero to two, there's actual water, from two to four, there's no water, and that's where their water comes from. So they say they'll stop the lawsuit

and give up the two to four water, which doesn't exist if the state hands over the water bank. And who is negotiating on behalf of the state? It's not great. Okay. So, okay. No, boy. Now, so, uh, so he also says the state can just pretend that the extra water exists. This, this feels a little hardy. As far as pretending extra water existed, this became known as paper water. What is happening? Yes, that's right. That's what origami goes in. So they've created something called paper water, which is water that doesn't exist. Are you about to enron water, you asshole? But legally, it does exist. No, it doesn't, you dick.

What? Legally, it does. On paper, it's water. No, it, what? Because you're supposed to get the four. Give me a piece of paper, I'll give you gold. You want some paper gold? You're supposed to get the 4.2 million. So, so you have rights to water, even though it's not real. You know, it's hard for you to throw out facts and then advocate for the other side. I'm like, feels like you have an evil twin. It's yourself. Okay. So the state went for it. Good. And I say we close this deal up, boys. It ain't going to get worse. And just gave up the water bank, paid for by public money. What? Created by the public. It is now privatized. It is just given away.

What year was this? This is 1994. Oh my God. All happens by enclosed doors. All deals are done by enclosed doors. Governor is Wilson, Republican. Ever since that day in 1994, California has been operating as if water that does not exist is real. That's not good. Why? Because we're low already. To make a large real estate development in California, you legally have to prove you have a water source available. So if you want to build a bunch of houses, you got to prove that there's water to go to those people. Okay. So now developers could just buy paper water from farmers and start building houses. Oh no. On top of all this, the state agreed there would no longer be a requirement

that the water be scaled back for farms during droughts. Oh God. So it's literally the shittiest deal I've ever heard of by a state in the history of the country. It's paper shit. It's the worst deal ever. Well, who closed it? I mean, nobody fucking knows who was in the room. Nobody knows who's in the room. Nobody knows who was in the, you know, Resnick was in there and some other guys, but we don't know who the fuck was in there. So suddenly, for some strange reason, Linda and Stuart, Resnick became huge farmers. They nearly doubled their land holdings over the next three years. By 1996, the Resnicks owned more than 100,000 acres of pistachios and almonds. Sales were about 1.5 billion. Oh my God. And they had so much power and so much control over water

that other huge farming families called on the state to intervene. Okay, right. Yeah. Sure. One was John, I should be Vitovich, right? This guy, John Visovich. Is he the Visovich or Vitovich? We'll know right here when we pull it up probably. All right. So that's one of the guys. Okay. So I think it's Vitovich. So Vitovich, so he's been, his father's a farmer. He's been buying up insane amounts of property always near rivers or over large geographers. Right. So he likes real water. He likes real water. So he accused the Resnicks of using shell companies to monopolize control of the current water bank, which is what exactly what they did. Right. A public resource had been privatized for the purpose of... It's weird for

a pistachio to have a shell company. Keep going. Can we get a symbol? I don't think so. Is there a rim shot? So a public resource has been privatized for the purpose of growing tens of thousands of acres of nuts he charged. Okay. He's going to take him to court. Okay. And then Vitovich, suddenly, went to see Stuart. No. And then the lawsuit was dropped. No, I liked him right away. Damn it. Now other companies... When I fall, I fall hard. Now other companies took a look with the red... It kept auto-cracking into red necks. So the Resnicks had done with the water bank. Okay. And decided that was a good way to make a buck. In 1998, a company named Enron bought a British water company for two billion dollars. You are literally Enroning Water?

God damn it. Oh, dear God. They renamed the company Azarix. I kind of missed when I knew nothing. It's kind of a simpler time. Azarix bought the huge Madera Ranch in the San Joaquin Valley. The ranch was on top of a giant aquifer that could hold 480 billion acres of water. Okay. The Wall Street Journal, quote, Azarix Corp is launching an exchange on the internet for buying, selling, storing, and transporting water in the West, hoping to make water a traded commodity, much like natural gas or electricity. Enron wanted people to invest in water, paper water. Oh, those... What? They were just... They worked in Imagine Town? Enron's whole business motto is like, yes, but have you heard of bullshit? It's way easier.

Okay. So Enron is Enroning Water. Basically. Right. The idea was to sell aquifer storage space in this aquifer. So farmers would send their... When they had excess water, like a year or there's a lot of rain, they can send their excess water to the storage. No. They pay to keep it there. And then when they need it, they can get the water back at the same time. No, no, no. The same time they're getting water from the state, that water they can sell. And that, a lot of that water is paper water, right? So they can sell it to a guy who wants to build... You are like three-card monning your mouth right now. But no. So they can sell their fake water to a guy who wants to build a town or a development.

It's fine. Why is this a problem? This is early and this is a train wreck. So, you know, when you need to get your water a drought year, you go back to Enron's water bank and get your water. Dave, believe it or not, that doesn't sound likely. So it all sounds good, right? So from the guy running it, quote, so the way that water trading works is that you're not really actually trading the actual water molecule. So I have this amount of water and now let's swap it in such a way that I get access to water when I need it, but it's not the actual water that's going there. It's an allocation of water. So I have, I'm owed water, so I'm going to sell that to you and then that's yours if it ever is a thing. I just want my water that I gave you. Yeah,

I don't know if we can do that, but let's, why don't you trade it or sell it to somebody else? It just sounds way worse. Trust me, sell it. It's much better than trying to take it. We don't have it. What was at the end there? Yep. I like doing business with you. Okay. Hey, I got to close up the bank. It's three. My water. The local farmers, however, were onto it and did not fall for it. They organized and told Azarix to fuck off and eventually Enron and Azarix had to give up and go home. Well, but they did try it in Texas, Florida and Argentina also and they failed in all three places. They lost about 1.6 billion. Can we end the episode now? Because there's been a huge victory. It's only going to get better. The farmer. In 1998, the Resnick's

family doctor told them that the pomegranate was revered in folk medicine. That's 180 acres of Yeah, granates. So they funded a study by an Israeli doctor at Technion University amazingly. Quote, we found that the juice had more antioxidants than we'd ever found in red wine. They funded more studies. Linda, quote, the news was off the charts. The Resnick's decided to make pomegranate juice. Oh my God. In 2001, they also planted seedless mandarins. But bees from nearby orchards were flying into the Resnick's groves. And if you pollinate a flower of a mandarin, it gets seeds. If they're not pollinated. Let's play a little God. Well, Stuart told his neighboring farmers to change which way the bees were flying or he'd sue them for trespassing. Wait, wait, wait.

Wait. He, wait. Yeah, go ahead. Are you a crazy man with all the money is telling other farmers to control their bees? Have you ever seen a rich person? Welcome to bee leashes. Have you ever seen a rich person who thinks that they can tell everything what to do? Well, this guy wants to control bees. I just, I think, and yes, there are a lot of entitled people out there, but normally people are able to see lines at the hive. What are your insects doing, buddy? Get them out of here. All right. Listen. All right. Listen, guys, I'm going to make this short and sweet. Obviously, you've turned your bees against me and my seedless mandarins. Stop being assholes. Call off your bees. Otherwise,

I'm sending my army of wasps. Okay. I see. I see one more bee. I'm going to fuck up you. I'm going to fuck up your hive. Oh, honey, I'm going to go outside. These fists made for bees. Hold on. I'm going to go grab one of these bees. All right, buddy. Who do you work for? Which farmer do you work for, little bee? Yeah. All right. Well, maybe you don't want to talk now. I'm going to punch the bee gut. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, hon. Yeah. What happened to me? I don't know. Okay. I don't know. You have a lot of issues. So they've invented pomegranate juice because of the anti-oxidants that are now off the charts and they're trying to control bees. Yes, they're trying to control bees. The farmers who's land the bees came from.

You mean the bee directors? Said they couldn't control the bees' flight path. So they're giving that talking point. Interesting. And then they threaten to sue Resnick back. Okay. So finally, Resnick just put netting up around his mandarins that bees could not penetrate. Sure. Make it a driving range. That's how that went away. For sure. Okay. Now his, now there, the Resnick's mandarins are called halos, if you've ever seen them in every grocery store in California. I go to the farmers. Okay. But there's two kinds of small mandarins. They're halos and they're cuties. Yeah. And the two, they used to have, it was them and somebody else had these orchards together and sold them all as cuties. And then the Resnick split off

because they can't work with anybody. Right. No. So palm, the pomegranate juice was launched in 2002. Oh no. These are the palm people. At that time, only 4% of Americans had tasted a pomegranate. Okay. Linda kicked in and marked and marketed palm as an anti antioxidant, rich miracle food that might improve cardiovascular health, fight prostate cancer, erectile dysfunction, and even prevent Alzheimer's disease. So you're going to have a strong body, cock, and you'll remember a lot of stuff. Yeah. You fuck like a rhino. You're not getting sick. Good heart. And yeah. And most of this is just sort of... Well, it's from the studies that her own

money paid for. Right. Paper studies. So the Resnick had become Hollywood players and big in the Democratic Party. They live in Beverly Hills. Oh boy. Linda, quote, I have David Bowie and, you know, Ruber Murdoch and Summer Redstone. Who else? Well... Sorry. Can David Bowie get off the list if possible? I know. Everybody's on her list. Mike Milken, you know, just famous people. You know, J. Simpson, Mel Gibson, Anna Nicole Smith, the A-listers, the normal people. All the heads of the Hollywood studios. So everyone she knows gets samples of palm before it launches. And she just keeps sending them and people are just, oh, they're all drinking them. She shows them on TV shows like Desperate Housewives, Queer Eye. So Scientology, The Beverage.

Yeah, basically. Queer Eye. There's swag bags at the Grammys, the Emmys, the Golden Globes. The Palm Teenie became a featured cocktail at the Oscars. So Palm takes off. It was healing food. Okay. Which is no different than what we've talked about before with the crazy healing cures. Oh, yeah, with like electric water or whatever. Yeah, it's all the same shit. The National Marketing Campaign showed a palm bottle with a broken noose around its neck under the slogan Cheat Death. Oh my god. Settled down. I didn't get that, but here. By the way, and that is such a, like that is, yeah, yeah, that's, that's what you see near where the salad dressings are. Yeah. Yes, they fought to get it put in the

healthy section because she said it's a living food. Oh boy. Yeah, it also, it's just like so easy to make people in Hollywood believe shit. Yeah. It's the easiest thing in the world. Hey, I got a swag bag. Hey, this is Joe Rool. All I do is drink palm. All right. Thanks, Joe. That's awesome. In 2004, the Resnex bought Fiji water. Oh shit. The thickest plastic bottled water there is. In 1995, the previous owner had gotten a 99 year lease over a 17 mile aquifer in Fiji with a tax free status. From a wizard? Who gives that deal? Because he said I'll bring jobs, but he said the water, the bottled water business is too risky and they went for it.

The tax break is supposed to end in 2008. So in four years after they bought it, right? So Fiji water takes off when the previous guy had, I think it was the third, third most selling one, but Fiji is still a super poverty stricken island. The owner called Fiji's square bottles, quote, little ambassadors for the islands of Fiji. That's full of BPA. As soon as the Resnex bought Fiji, they pushed the bottles into celebrities hands at every opportunity. Wow, these dumb morons. Hey, we're the cast of friends. This is all we drink. I mean, dude, they've got them in Al Gore's hand and shit. Like they've got them in hands. You're like, it shouldn't be in your hand. It was on the Sopranos 24, the view, Desperate Housewives,

soon Fiji was the number one selling bottled water in the U.S. We were just having fun though. We were just a bunch of kids who were excited to have bottles of water with us, you know, no longer living by the shackles of the bubbler, being able to walk around with some water. That's all we wanted. We just wanted a simple treat on a hot summer's day. I know. Or something when you're on a road, when you're sitting in traffic, you don't have time to pull over and drink from a goddamn river. But imagine there's a God, if there is a God, and he comes back, and she comes back, and she goes, now tell me about this. And you go, okay. So we go to this island in the middle of the ocean you build, and we take water.

You already know everything. Why are you making us tell you? And then we get, there's these guys there that are called, you know, the Chinese guys are, Chinese guys, they live over there, and they make bottles for us, and they're super different than other bottles. And then we put the, we put the water in bottles, and then we put on ships, and we take it across the ocean, and then we all drink it here. I don't think she'd be happy. And then she goes, well, I gave you water where you are. I know, but this is in little square bottles. Yeah, but they're little, let me handle this, Mark. They're little baby ambassadors. We

like to look at each thick, thick plastic. And by the way, just to let you know, a lot of these bottles end up back in the ocean where water is so ubiquitous. That's right, it doesn't matter. And so the Fiji water goes home to the middle of the ocean on the island. Plus, the people in Fiji don't have, they're like poor. So, I don't know, is that how you want them to be? Oh, no, they're on an awesome island. Oh, you're all seeing all knowing. You obviously know you made the Fijians poor. Yeah. And they are so happy to have their resources stolen. They love it. They're really into it. They like when we take their stuff. Oh, yeah. No, we've got a bunch of them who will say that, you know, but anyhoo's will be. We should get moving. We should go. Because we were

talking about traffic earlier, and it is awful this time of, it's a Friday. You should have done something about that. Two days ago. Yeah, yeah. And there's a seventh day, maybe you should have a seventh or eighth or whatever. Oh, Kidoke. Anyhoo. You should meet with these guys at Nestle. Oh, absolutely. You'll love them. Nestle's great. They make chocolate, kill people. It's unbelievable. So, Sun Fiji becomes the number one water bottle selling company in the US. The slogan was, quote, We'll kill everything. And remember this, we saved you a trip to Fiji. Like the worst part. Thank you. Like going to Fiji. Yeah, like going to Fiji is some sort of penance. A day without us, you'd have to go there. It's nice though. It's an island. Shut up

and drink your bottle. Island paradise. Shut up. The Resnicks also relentlessly attacked tap water, calling it, quote, not a real viable alternative. It's true that you can drink it. That it can contain 4,000 contaminants, which Fiji's, quote, living water did not. This is just, and these are repeated talking points. These are things that have now. Oh, no, they've, you know, I didn't even, I think I forgot to put this in here, but they eventually, yeah, they got fucked on that too. Like they, at one point they said our waters, like they made fun of Cleveland and Cleveland water, they did tests, and it's more pure than Fiji bottled water. Yeah, but it saved you a trip to Cleveland. Linda wrote, quote, you can no longer trust public or private water supplies. Yeah,

yeah, trust this billionaire who's called pomegranate juice, the thing that'll cure your cancer. Pistachios are also becoming bigger and bigger sellers, but the Resnicks knew, if relations with Iran ever normalized, the country could sell its pistachios again, which are far superior. Sweet God, sweet God. The nuts are so much better. The Iranian nuts are so much better than America's that Israelis buy Iranian pistachios shipped through Turkey and rebranded. Wow. So the Resnicks started sending money to right-wing think tanks and advocacy groups that push for hardline approaches on Iran. This is just now becoming a cartoon. Like foreign policy based upon pistachio butteriness. Capitalism. This includes economic

sanctions, sabotage, and vilification. Between 1999 and 2004, the Resnick Foundation funneled 1.125 million to the American Jewish Committee, one of the most active lobbyists pushing for Iran's sanctions bill that was passed in 2009. Oh my God. Other groups pushing for the sanctions were Halburden, Exxon, Mobile, and Lockheed Martin. I got to go. It's a list at like Satan's barbecue. And run, Lockheed. Welcome, welcome, welcome. The Resnicks also gave money to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy think tank, which calls for heavy sanctions and military strikes against Iran. What must it be like to have this much money? I think you stop having any feeling. You completely lose conscience. You have no feeling as a human being.

Stuart is also a board member of the American Friends of IDC, a non-for-profit foundation that is the fundraising arm of a think tank with close ties to the Israeli Intelligent and Military Establishment. American Friends of IDC gave 10 million to the think tank in 2006. We do not know how much the Resnicks gave, but Stuart is a board member along with Vegas, Tycoon, Sheldon, Adelson. Oh my God. I think I need a pomegranate juice. By the way, here's the Fuji plant. There it is making. That's where they make the water. It's really beautiful. The facility. Background, man. Linda says others are jealous. Thanks for saving me a trip to there. Yeah, sure. Linda says other people are jealous of their pistachio success.

Well, people. Quote, we've done more for the pistachio than anyone ever since it was planted in the Garden of Eden. Oh, sorry. Can we just murder that sentence for an hour? Can I finish the sentence? Yeah. Oh no. Will they do the second one? My husband should be canonized for all the work he's done. Oh my God. By the way, they've been canonizing people for nut quality for a long time. Oh my God. You're deep in the pistachio game when you're talking like this. I'm the Martin Luther King of pistachios. So just so people understand what sanctions do, sanctions kill people. Sanctions kill children and people who need medicine. They kill people. That's what sanctions do. They really hurt the poor and they kill the poor in other countries. So when they're trying to

make money out of their pistachios, they're killing people. They're begging for sanctions based on their nuts. Yeah. Nuts. In 2006, the Fiji government was overthrown in a military coup. Okay. The Resnicks just kept doing business in the country saying they were helping the people by giving them jobs. Environmental activists targeted Fiji water for bottling water on a Pacific island with oil made from bottles in China and talking shit about tap water. Linda responded with a new Fiji slogan. Quote, every drop is green. Shouldn't that be what you label tap water? She started an ad campaign called Fiji Green that urged people to drink imported water to fight climate change. Oh, Mike, get dead. You know, sometimes you just got to go so far off the

spectrum to hit a home run. You know what I mean? It's almost like you took a swing, missed the ball, but then when the bat crossed behind you, you accidentally bunted. You know, like you've just got to like, you know, oh, yeah, well, we're ruining the world. Well, how about this by Fiji Water to save the world, bitch? How about that? Oh, God. It's really the Fiji Green website claims a 120% carbon offset and says that buying a large bottle of Fiji water creates the same carbon reduction as walking five blocks instead of driving. What happened? What just happened? Who is the scientist? Hello, I'm Dr. Hostage. Jesus. So if you don't drink your Fiji today, walk five blocks. Okay. The company insists that the water bottles travel on ships that would

be making the trip anyway. So that doesn't count. Empty ships just making the trip? Well, what do you say? We turn around and do it again with nothing on board, huh? The old time's sake. They, wait, did I mention the Resnick's own Neptune Pacific line, a shipping company? No. I didn't. Oh, would they also own that? So maybe they're right. Maybe the ships are going that way. Anyway, they're not likable. In 2008, the way they were factoring it all was they were like, it was like, there's this, there's this way that certain companies do, we're good for climate change, we're good for carbon emissions is they like do it like, it's like a decade form, decades ahead formula. So it's like, if you look at this over nine decades, we're actually pretty

good. Right. So they use this math that's just like fucking nonsense. In future decades? Yeah, yeah, future decades. Like, so they're like, so nine decades on the road, it all works out. It's the Enron Genie refusing to go back in the bottle again. In 2008, the tax break Fiji had given had given the water company was set to expire. The government tried to impose a tax. Fiji Water called it quote draconian and shut down the plant. Okay. The government gave in Fiji water never called the military junta controlling the island draconian just the attempt to get taxes. The military declared martial law in 2009. Okay. In California, the Resnick's water bank ownership was paying off in spades. When drought struck in 2007, the Resnick's 48% stake in the current

water bank became even more valuable. The AP reported that the Resnick share of the water bank amounted to 246 billion gallons and up to supply all the residents of San Francisco for 16 years. Okay. They were able to expand and water all of their orchards. Now each nut Oh, yeah, takes a gallon of water. Yeah. Each nut. And they're insanely thirsty. You know, that needs to be in this day and age instead of calorie counts, that's what needs to be listed next to the food item. How much water? How much water does it take to produce this stuff? So they also sold water. So the Resnick's are selling water. Why do they need that's in the water bank? Dime bags when they got ounces moving. They're selling water to the state of California.

That is the this just further proves how bad this deal is. I say we take it. Why did you say yes to this? Look, all right, they're pretty shrewd. I say we just let's move on this deal. I don't know how much better it's going to get. So this is water the state had owned a Dave and just gave way to the people now charging them for the water. They're giving us a great deal. Move on this from 2000 to 2007, the state of California paid the Resnick's 30.6 million dollars for water. And the water was used to protect native fish, the Delta smelt in the fragile Sacramento, San Joaquin Delta. So they're saving a fish that's a key animal in the food chain. Okay. Super key animal in the food chain. And so they're selling water. But again,

I think this is a lot of water because they can't take water from the water bank. Move it up. I think it's just an allotment of water. So they're not taking the water that's going down the river. And they're like, yeah, you can have that. We'll just sell it to you. We just are not allowed to be shocked when we live in Mad Max. In 2010, the Fiji government said it was going to increase taxes again, raising the tax on bottled water about $0.08 in U.S. money. You'll have to walk three more blocks. Yeah. The Fiji bottled taxes were only bringing in $500,000 a year, and this would raise it to $22 million. Okay. The Resnicks, making hundreds of millions a year from Fiji water, not including all their other businesses, weren't about to pony up. How could

they? Their net worth was $1.3 billion. How could they give up $22 million a year? Yeah. The Resnicks immediately shut down the Fiji water plant and laid off the 400 Fijian employees. Arm guards took over the plant. The Fiji water president said this was, quote, a clear and unmistakable message to businesses operating in Fiji or looking to invest there. The country is increasingly unstable and is becoming a very risky place in which to invest. How about existence, quality of existence? To do that to human beings, and granted it's a military junta and whatnot, but that island needs money and you're fucking taking their water and you have $1.3 billion.

And it's the story we've heard a number of times on this where it is it's just this level of theft. And now they're calling out to the rest of the world that it's a shitty place to invest, hurting further business ventures. Because that's all that matters. So challenging the Resnicks is not a thing that usually goes well. Well, I'm glad we're doing it. Allegedly. There was a there was a pistachio commission that like... Very serious. Well, you know, like the milk commission and stuff where they do advertising.

Where were the PC? Excuse me, man. Can we just borrow a moment of your time? What were the PC, the pistachio coalition? Look, we're here to... When was the last time you saw your husband? When was the pistachio coalition? Your husband might have died. Shouldn't he be doing pistachio work? It's a long story. You know what? We've broadened our reach. We're also doing murder investigation.

Anyway, look, the point, man. Take a seat. Your husband has been murdered. Actually, this is the first time I've had to let someone down from this. You want to crack one of these? Oh, go for it. This is Tom. He's kind of a hothead, but he's also a puppy dog. So there's a pistachio commission. They basically handled that. Hey, we're the PC. How are you guys doing? Open up, PC. We're the pistachio coalition. What kind of nuts you got in your nut drawer?

So they handle advertising, right? It's all the farmers get together and they decide. We're going to add it. And so when the Resnick's got control of 65% of pistachios, they killed the commission. So they would just handle the marketing themselves. Sure. This is how monopolies get to have fun. That's right. So one guy in the commission said, quote, Stewart wants to be a benevolent dictator. If he thinks you're defying him, if he thinks you're defying him, he'll start with nobody realizes the good I've done for agriculture. And then he moves on to, do you know who I am? Do you know what I am? I'm a billionaire.

That's cool. That's super cool to hear. It doesn't matter who the billionaire is. If a billionaire ever says I'm a billionaire, legally, you can kick them in the nuts as hard as you want. Right in the pistachios. Right in the pistachios. And like how you're sighing. I'm going to continue the quote. He's got an awful temper. He's trying to control through Kabbalah. Dave, I mean, we're just, we're checking a lot of boxes here. I mean, I don't know when the douche

of the year is, but so the PR from this Fuji shutdown is not good. And the quotes that they're saying people read right through. So there's a backlash. So the day after shutting down the plant, the Resnicks relent and accept the tax increase because it's $22 million and they make 1.3. Dave, give them some credit. That's so cool. Cool. None of the so-called help the Resnicks give, Fiji, has stopped outbreaks of typhoid on the islands. Typhoid fever is endemic there. Incidents have been increasing over the last decade. What does that do to the investment prospects? Recent research identified the transmissions. The transmission of typhoid is predominantly

through the consumption of contaminated surface water and unwashed produce. If only the people of Fiji had a source of water, so they're taking their aquifer water and the Fijians are drinking, I assume, out of reservoirs that are giving them typhoid. How many blocks are they walking? Five. So they're saving on climate change. They got to pick it up. I don't think that's how you cure typhoid.

No, you got to walk 10 blocks. And jump. Okay. Yeah, that's fair. What if you're on a really small island, though? They should just open their own typhoid kind of water. I mean, that's what the Resnicks did. Okay. Sorry for liking these people. I'm sorry.

No, no, I get it. It's slowly going to submit. I know a winner. That same year, the Federal Trade Commission ruled that palms ads of health cures were not true. Weird. The FTC said palm had overhyped the juice's ability to prevent heart disease, prostate cancer, and erectile dysfunction. Yeah, my dick still won't get hard, you liars. I drank so much palm and I can't fuck.

That's the first air and laugh. I've been slinging the whole hour. Linda, quote. Linda, quote, I think it was unfair and I think it's a tragedy if the fresh fruits and vegetables that are really the medicine chest of the 21st century have to adhere to the same rules as a drug that could possibly harm you. The Resnicks live in a house. Oh, I don't want to see it because I'm going to go burn it.

In Beverly Hills. That's not a house that is valued at $25 million. Earth Island, Earth Island Journal, quote. The Beverly Hills home looks more like an embassy than a house. Seriously. They entertain the rich and famous there. They've expanded the house by buying up and tearing down three adjacent properties. An author who wrote a book about over-the-top houses called it, quote,

exaggerated, extravagant, crude, ridiculous, and a bit indecent. There is a seven-foot marble statue of Napoleon in their drawing room. Sorry, they made Napoleon seven feet? Yeah, marble statues, they had to reinforce the floor to put the statue in. You know, we're taking water from Waterloo. It's an interesting project we have coming up in the spring. Gold is everywhere. Legged gold furniture, paintings in gold frames, gold leaf carpet,

ceilings with gold leaf moldings, and gold-framed drapes. New money, am I right? New money. I mean, it's just fucking awful. Oh, God. Could you imagine? What the fuck? Why would you live in that?

Yeah, it's just like must- Look at the fucking table. Yeah, living in a museum. It's just a gold-ringed table. It's like a crown table. It really is the height of when you're obsessed with possessions. It's no longer matters what your livability or quality is. It's what a stranger's think.

Well, when you think about the French Revolution, you and your head picture these rich people eating grapes and dancing around. Like, there's no difference between this and that. Between this and the Fijians. Well, and the disparity is now it's rising to the surface more and more. So we will, you know, like we just need to... If I were an investor right now, I'd invest in pikes. It's going to be huge for heads in the future.

But the Resnecks were about to become givers. Now, they're philanthropists. They've gone to give to museums and... Hey, sir, we took all your water. Here's a statue. They did like some neuro wing at the UCLA or something for neurological disorders. Okay. Linda's story, what happened in 2010 that really made them change and help people

is that they were at a dinner party with a Harvard professor. By the way, I mean, talk about a relatable premise. Who was an ethicist. Oh, my God. So there's some of the sentences you've said read like mad libs. Well, having dinner with an ethicist is such a fucking rich person thing to do. Yeah. Hey, let's have an ethicist over and he'll see.

We'll just talk and see how we're doing. I wouldn't use that fork. Why? There's a downside you're not thinking of. Oh, my God. What a nightmare. That much pepper is really sarcastic and rude. Are you ready for this?

No. He asked the guests if they would be happy living in a town that was perfect in every possible way except for one terrible secret. Everyone in the town knew that somewhere in that village, in a dank basement, there was a small six year old child who was being tortured. And you couldn't say anything about the torture because if you did, you had to leave the town. Sorry, Todd.

I'll have the prime rib. I don't know what I want to put a pin in this. I can't imagine what they this is like that that movie premise where it's like if you hit a button, someone dies, but you don't know. So essentially, are you okay knowing the truth in order for your life to be perfect? That's what he's saying. He's saying you're ignoring the truth. He's sitting with a bunch of rich people saying,

by you guys getting all this, you're fucking over people. Surely charging $65,000 for this dinner. Linda, quote, and it changed my life that very day. They would do good from then on. Now, I'm sure this sudden philanthropy was because of a Harvard Harvard professor and a nothing to do with a story written by reporter John Gibbler in the Earth Island Journal just months before it was about the farm workers in the town of Lost Hills, Kern County, the farm workers of the Resnick's farm, quote,

the farm workers of Lost Hills live in mobile homes and cannot drink the water from their taps. The crops they tend to drink better and cheaper water than they do. Lost Hills is a 21st century company town. There is no bank, no pharmacy, no local government. The nearest place to deposit a check or go to a supermarket is Wasco, 20 miles away. Nearly everyone labors in the field for a minimum wage. Nearly everyone in the town worked for the Resnick's. The Los Angeles Business Journal estimates the Resnick's worth at $1.79 billion.

One guy who worked 58 hours a week at $8 an hour was asked how many of the field workers were undocumented, quote, if not 100 percent, then the majority. The workers all complained about low wages. One had been fired after injuring his knee on the job. One woman said, quote, these are hunger wages. The reporter called the Role International office to ask for an interview. The receptionist said the company didn't give information to the public. The reporter asked who he should address his research questions to, quote,

I suggest you don't research us, and she hung up. The workers in Los Hills have no clean water source, have to buy bottled water, which costs them $50 to $100 a month. They have to buy bottled water for $50 to $100 a month while working for the number one water bottleers in the fucking world. They really did bring Fiji here, though. Oh, Jesus. And the Resnicks had control.

I mean, talk about gritting teeth when you're buying bottles of water. The Resnicks also had control of 755,000 acre feet of water in the current water bank at that time. Oh, my God. I mean, they need an on-site ethicist. They need to be like a gardener. You need a team of ethicists. Linda, can we talk to you real quick?

That's an awful thing you're doing. Oh, it is? Have you heard of a soul replacement? No, how much? I'll throw money at this. So the Resnicks began spending $50 to $80 million a year on philanthropy for poor people, and they started, strangely enough, with their own workers in Los Hills.

That's not charity. That's not charity. What? God damn it. What are you talking about? We've decided to donate to our workers. A brave, brave decision has been reached here. Stewart, quote, look, there's poverty and sadness all over the planet,

but I felt that if I was really going to do work, I should start to do work in the place where our employees work and live. That would be most meaningful. Stewart, brave, brave, Stewart. So Los Tills. How do I not have a picture there? Oh, lost picture. Oh, there it is.

Oh, wow. Yeah, that looks, that looks shitty. The workers in the valley got college scholarships and tutors, a new school being built. Linda, this is, of course, designing the curriculum. Oh, good. Okay, so you're taking Palm 101. It's all about pomegranates.

And then we're going to do a thing about how great Fiji water is. Okay, and then while immigrants are just rude. Also, why it's good to lower the minimum wage. Paper water, better than real water. You can drink it. Yeah. There's a free wellness center and free fruits and veggies put out for the workers. Linda decided to get rid of the nacho chips, french fries, and soft drinks.

The workers weren't happy about it. So the residents started to begin to sell wellness to their 4,300 employees. This is just, I mean, this is not, this is Jonestown-y now. What? Drink the Kool-Aid. The second that you're offering your own, like that's the problem with the term wellness formula. Like I have a wellness formula.

You know, I'm making an event. They, so they did stuff like they built a, they built a park. They get bonuses for the workers. I should not have watched Sorry to Bother You. That movie is now like, what are you talking about? We made one movie. We made one movie. That movie is now like, what are you talking about?

We made wonderful park. They get bonuses for losing weight. 1,150 workers have earned bonuses up to $500 for losing a collective 14,000 pounds between all of them over two years. You know where that's not happening is Venezuela. During paid breaks, music starts blaring and they do 15 minutes of Zumba where they are. I think Teletubby has less weird laws. Teletubby land.

Quote, a few dozen seasonal employees wearing orange reflective vests and hair nuts sat around folding tables evaluating samples from incoming truckloads of pistachios. Suddenly a boombox started blaring merengue and everyone stood up and danced. It was the daily Zumba break. At the cafeteria, Spanish rice isn't rice, but cauliflower that looks like rice. Pizza dough is cauliflower too. She's making them eat what she eats. Dave.

She's making them do the Zumba, which you know she does. Dave, it's honestly taking on a dark turn. After work, a 10 hour workday, they are pushed to work out in the fitness center for an hour and they do it. There are trainer watches. The workers want the cash bonuses from the company's Get Fit program. It's like living in a timeshare. Like a timeshare meeting.

Working out good for them? Yes, sure. Is eating healthy good for them? Yes, sure. But also, if you're making minimum wage, fuck it. One of the only joys you have is eating the food you like, not cauliflower fucking rice. You're already fucking them.

Let them have their little moments of fucking joy. But it's also easy to do that. It's also easy to insist on 15 minute Zumba breaks when your life is breaks. Yeah, totally. And so you're just like, hey, everybody do Zumba. Yeah, they have no idea what these people's lives are like. So most of these people came from Northern Mexico, where their farm towns were taken over by cartels.

A lot of people were slaughtered in those towns, and they fled. To get to America, they have to pay coyotes to cross the border. The price now is $12,000 ahead, which the families, they get a cousin over, then they pay off together over years. So out of their meager wages, they're saving up money to pay off the coyotes, so they can never get ahead. So they will take the $100 that they get for working out for a year,

because they have to. Oh, you're paid to work out? Well, that's the incentive. That's the incentive. She pays them, and they need money so badly, because their lives have been so fucked. So. By the way, cauliflower is very versatile, so.

So it means, yeah. So it means if they do Zumba in the middle of a fucking pistachio field, they'll do it, which has got to be the most humiliating thing I can fucking think of. Like I just cannot imagine. Well, you are just, I mean, you are in like a delusional paradise. Yeah. Yeah, but they still live in train box cars that were turned into housing,

and their water comes out of a tap that is, and it is yellow and foul smelling. They do not drink it. That is sort of the beauty of the capitalist's dream, is that they spent so long telling you that your tap water was dog shit long enough to make you believe it, so they turned your water into dog shit. Well, the water there is a fucking nightmare.

An 11-year-old girl, quote, it comes out like pee. They spend $50 a month or more on bottled water still. I wish there was a way around. I wish there was something that the Resnicks could do. Anyway, in 2014, Stephen. Somebody should show them a documentary about the Resnicks. Right? Yeah.

In 2014, Stephen Colbert did a superwall ad for the Resnicks pistachios. Members head comes open and there's a pistachio inside. Pistachio sales more than doubled in three months. Sales increased the following year to reach $114 million in more than, sorry, in 2015, the Resnicks rebranded all their holdings from Role International to The Wonderful Company to highlight their focus on healthy products and philanthropy.

Linda, quote, our company has always believed that success means doing well by doing good. No, it hasn't. No, no, she's, she has a name. They named it. So there's the school they're making, prep academy. Oh my God. What? Jesus Christ, they're people, they're great people.

Oh, look at that. You know, they should be sentenced to drowning. 2015, it was revealed that for 20 years, the Resnicks and other farmers had been watering their orchards with treated frackwadding wastewater. Ah, that's right, right. Fracking wastewater. Wastewater is a byproduct of fracking.

It is being treated and sold to farmers who use it to water their crops, which are then sold in grocery stores to human beings. As the brutal drought wore on, farmers used more and more oil wastewater. California officials praised using oil wastewater to grow vegetables, but some think it's not exactly safe. And these people who are flagging it,

they're sort of basing this upon the idea that they don't like oil and white food. Right, they don't believe wastewater. Hydrocarbons and strawberries, they're just fucking dumb. By the way, it's going to be really interesting. The next 30 years, shall we give us, are going to be really fascinating because there's going to be a lot of fun mutations going on.

X-Men's going to watch a documentary in 20 years, just while people have been living on fracked food. Right, and then people say, well, the EPA is being fucked by Trump, but it's already fucked. Oh, yeah. It's already a fucking disaster, guys. No one's doing shit about anything.

I mean, sure, they do a lot of stuff, but it's so fucking bad. Absolutely. I mean, look at Flint. Look at Flint. The amount of pollution that is allowed to just be, and of course, it's getting worse, but it has... It's like everything else.

It's kind of like, if you're a president, what you're really doing is biting your time. What is going to be part of your problem, and what is going to be part of this next guy's problem, or like a guy 30 years down the line, and we, unfortunately, are at the breaking point of this problem with the worst person possible, but it has been created.

It's been created. The corrosive nature of all of this goes back ages. Yeah, decades, yeah. So, for instance, benzene turned up in the wastewater, but the state has set no standard for benzene irrigation water. After complaints, the water board started requiring the water... The water board.

The water board started... Say yes. ...request requiring the water be tested for toxins, and appointed a committee to determine if chemicals in the water, quote, pose a threat to public health at the concentrations detected. Yeah, let's see. Now, let's do that 20 years after we started doing it.

Yeah. That's when we should do that. For sure, yeah, no, find out. It's time. California safety consultants are concerned, quote, current water district requirements for testing such waters before they are used for irrigation are not sufficient. No one knows what chemicals fracking companies use,

so they don't know what to test for. Because fracking companies, I don't think anywhere, does any government force any fracking company to disclose the chemicals they use because it's copyright law. Why would they? Why would they? Why would you want to know that? Why would you want to know what you're blasting into earth?

Some of the crops being grown with fracking water are subview raisins, that's probably wrong, but Sutter Home Wines and Wonderful Citrus. Hmm. Halos. Hmm. Journalist Yasha Levin, he went down there, and here's the pools. Oh, God.

Here's his quote. Here's his quote. To really appreciate the toxicity of this place, all you have to do is stand by the mixing ponds, where the oil waste is magically turned into clean. That is so much worse than I would have imagined. Into clean irrigation water, a whiff of the raw petroleum and chemist makes your head spin.

That's the water that is being used for the, like, I mean, essentially. It's like huffing glue, he said. So they put it in different pools, and they move it from pool to pool, and that's supposed to clean up the water. So it's different pools, but they're just moving the water through. But they're putting the fracking water through,

at least what they're saying is pretty tiny. See the dark one, and then the next one, and then the next one? So that's how they're cleaning it. They all look pretty dark. And then crude oil and water. Oh, God, what? Who, if you're asked to draw that on something,

you're like, no, that makes no sense. Wow. So they're using this water to, all their fucking, all the farmers, because there's a drought. And at the same time, the government was cracking down on fracking companies about how to get rid of wastewater.

So it all worked out. Fragrant culture. It all worked out. But that is part of the problem, is that like when you have, when you do squeeze farmers to the sixth, it's like what Monsanto does. It's like, at some point.

These guys aren't being squeezed. No, no, the farmer. Like local farmer, like when local farmers have to like make decisions, they're going to make compromise decisions to survive. But I don't know how, I don't know. I mean, the number of local farmers in the San Joaquin Valley,

and it's probably very small. Okay. And this is agribusiness has destroyed everybody. The rednecks thirst for water shows no sign of ending. They have used front groups and political pressure to try to get even more water from Northern California. It's deltas. God damn.

The biggest thing holding it all up is a fish called the delta smelt. The smelt are considered. Whoever smelt it, deltas. That's right. The smelt are considered an indicator species used to gauge the overall health of the delta's aquatic player.

Hey, I'm going to get out of here. And when you, because I'm sure this is going to be a pretty light fact. So I'm going to actually get out of here before you say this one. I'm just going to walk out with a pretty optimistic view. As the smelt goes, so go the other fish species in the delta.

Lawsuits over the livelihood of the delta smelt have kept more water from being pumped out of the delta. So the smelt is basically saving the delta, but it's also dwindling every year. I learned about the delta smelt when I was in college in the fucking early 90s. Like the delta smelt, like when the delta smelt goes down,

so do the salmon. And if the salmon go down, they don't just go down and say, I'm just go it affects the whole fucking west coast. Like the delta smelt is a big fucking deal. So a group called the Coalition for Sustainable Delta started filing lawsuits to assign blame for the estuaries decline.

It blamed everything from farming, housing development, dredging, power plants, sport fishing, and pollution, but not big ag farming in the valley, farming up north near the delta. Weird. The coalition originally listed a paramount farms facts number, and three of the four officers on its early tax documents

were Resnick employees. It's so simple. I mean, you just, at some point, you're just too cocky. Yeah. But they can get away with it. They are getting away with it. Yeah, that's what I mean. No one's going to stop them.

Yeah, what do you care? They have money. Why would, yeah, you may as well let Linda do everything. After judges ruled in favor of the smelt, the Resnicks started reaching out to politicians whom they had given tons of money to over the years. 734,000 to Governor Gray Davis, 270,000 to Schwarzenegger, 150,000 to Jerry Brown,

plus 250,000 to his pet education project, tons of money everywhere. Senator Dianne Feinstein, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, a powerful energy and water panel, and spent a new year at the Resnicks Aspen House, tried to help out. The senator asked the interior and commerce agencies to reexamine the science behind the Delta

smelt environmental protection plan. The agencies then spent $750,000 to come to the exact same conclusion that researchers had. 2,007 restrictions on Delta pumping were warranted. So because Dianne Feinstein is friends, they just wasted $750,000 of our money. Must be a nice guest room. Linda says that they wield no political power

when it comes to water policy. Quote, we have no influence politically. I swear to you, nobody has a political influence in this, nor would we use it. No, no, no, we use it. No, no, why would you? Governor Brown began pushing for a $15 billion plan to construct two 40-foot-wide tunnels to carry

76,000 gallons of water per second from the Sacramento River to the Central Valley. The Resnicks then launched Californians for Water Security a group of business people backing the tunnels. So they just started releasing all these ads, and they said it was about safety. It was about what if earthquakes happened? What are we going to do?

They just always fucking bolstered. They had nothing to do with the fact that like, they just want to fucking put pistachios everywhere. 2016, Palm hits the skits. The juice stopped selling after the FTC had found wonderful guilty of false advertising and ordered the Resnicks to stop making false health claims. Their tanks at the plant were filled with a three-year supply,

and the state's worst drought was having an effect. Oh, no. The Resnicks had gone through their allotment and the water bank and the state water supplies had gone to almost zero for the farms. The pomegranate orchards were now being bulldozed up to 10,000 trees by 2016. But the Resnicks were still watering a lot of their orchards.

How? Well, remember that guy, John Vitovich? Yeah, the guy who stood in front of the plane. He was good for a minute, then he turned bad. Yeah, that guy? Yeah. He was going around buying up tons of land, right? I think he has like 100,000 acres of land now.

It's all near water. It's all very select places. And he was the guy who was going to sue him, but then didn't. Well, he had bought land in nearby Kings County, and he was selling Stuart water from the Dudley Ridge Water District. He was selling everyone water. He's not a farmer. He buys land and sells water or paper water.

That's all he does. He literally at one point in one interview said that he's doing it to show farmers that what they're doing is unsustainable. What a dick. So wonderful is buying up 50,000 acre feet of water a year in a bunch of hidden secret deals in 2016. Some of the water is coming from farmers

in the Tulare Lake Basin, who are pumping so much out of the ground that the levees protecting the town of Cochrane are sinking by feet to fix the subsidence and keep the town dry in the next flood. Residents and the state prison are having to pay $10 million in extra taxes. So these farmers are taking water out of the ground

and just selling it to whoever the fuck they want. And now the town has to pay $10 million because everything is getting so fucked up from the land collapsing. At the same time, the Resnex had bought 300,000 acre feet of water for $200 million from different people. So John Vitovich was the one selling to the Resnex, but he had already been sued by nearby farmers

in Kings County for taking too much water out of the ground and moving it. The court settlement states water cannot go outside Kings County. But the Resnex had a pipeline going to Kings County and taking the water. Vitovich, quote. They drink our oil. Resnex picks up the water in Dudley Ridge.

It's his pipe, not mine, where he takes the water. It's none of my business. Uh-huh, oh, god damn it. This should all take place in the Cayman Islands. After Resnex learned a report, I had discovered the pipeline. He had it removed. All for the right reasons.

Now, the valley has been sinking forever. And here is a picture from the 70s. So that's a guy from a national, he's a geographer, so. Okay. So that's where the land was in 1925. Okay. In 1955 and now in 1970. Wait, that's where the water was?

That's where the land was. The land was, okay. So the land has sunk a telephone size, right? A telephone pole size. That's crazy. Of human, down at the human bottom there. What? So it's still been sinking every year since 1977.

It keeps going down. That's a hard thing to fathom. And during the strike, the sinking was insane. Feet and feet and feet. So all the pumping of aquifers has everyone to have to dig deeper to find water. A raisin farmer in Selma had a well that ran dry. He said, quote, Resnick, my old well can't compete with his new wells. I have to go deeper if I can.

So he drives people out of business because if you're a farmer and you're living on the edge and you have to keep digging deeper, that means each well costs more. And what was 30,000? It's not 250,000 because you're trying to keep up with the asshole. And eventually you can't keep up with the asshole. So much water is being pulled out of aquifers that the state is sinking. The sinking is destroying bridges, cracking irrigation canals, and twisting highways. Some places in the state are sinking more than a foot per year.

Railroads, bridges, highways, wells, everything is being damaged. Instead of recording it, the different companies or whatever just go out and fix that one issue and then move on to the next one. Sure, perfect. Yeah. Don't worry about removing the disease. Fix the finger. It started raining again in autumn of 2016 and the state water project for the first time

in six years had a surplus. Wonderful could irrigate its orchards again and even put more in the water bank. The resinics started planting all the trees where they had dug them up. Of the 22,000 acres they ripped up during the drought, 18,000 acres are being replanted as pistachios. Oh, god damn it. Well, obviously there's one big lesson. No more pistachios.

Pistachios, unless you're in Iran where I hear they're very buttery. Very good. Very buttery. They also decided to get into the wine business in Paso Robles. They bought land and then brought in bulldozers and started tearing up the hillside, destroying thousands of California oak trees. People were furious. Restaurants up and down the coast said they would boycott the resinics wine,

and then the media was alerted, and then the resinics claimed they were sorry. When we learned of the terrible situation, not to mention our poor reputation within the community, we were ashamed and are sorry. That's not how shame is supposed to work. We were asleep at the wheel. We were horrified by the lack of a guard. I'm going to throw up. Give me a bucket, Aaron.

Our neighbor and nature. We hope that the community will accept our deepest and most sincere apologies. Listen to the level of ego that's at the heart of this apology. And find it in their hearts to forgive us. Oh my god. They pledged to donate the 388 acres to charity, but the oaks, the 100-year-old oaks, or more, are gone. Yeah.

They just destroyed a forest. But Dave, they're sorry. Once people found out and they knew they felt bad. That's not how conscience is supposed to work. Once people got angry at us, we felt bad. Once everyone knew our secrets, we were guilty. I love it the way it's written. They act like it's just something that happened they didn't know about.

Reputation. In an apology about destroying nature, the level of your reputation should be something you can at least bite your fucking lip through. Yeah. So. God damn. I am like, I want to frame this picture and just get a punching bag. The state of California has adopted a new law that finally regulates pumping.

But when it goes into a full effect in a decade or two. Oh god. More than a million acres of cropland across the valley will have to be retired, but then how much water will be left in those aquifers? Now an aquifer can be refilled, but when an aquifer dries up, then it turns into a substance that it like, it's like, it's almost like, I think the way it's been described to me is it's like a hard clay that then crumbles and now you can't refill it. Right.

But as long as it's got something to it, you can always refill it. But once it's no law, once it's empty, you can't refill it. Right. Right. The Resnicks on 180,000 acres of California, 281 square miles is the largest farmer in the country, I believe. Well, he looks like a farmer. 121,000 of those acres are irrigated. The Resnicks use more water than any other person in the west.

Their 15 million trees consume more than 40, 400,000 acre feet of water a year. The entire city of Los Angeles consumes 587,000 acres a year. Oh my God. Linda on the company, quote, if you call yourself the wonderful company, you'd better damn well be wonderful, right? Are you asking? Linda, are you asking? My God.

So when people say there's a water problem in California, there isn't a water problem in California. And when people say there's a human problem in California. Yeah, there's a human problem. And people say that in the north, they're stealing our water in Southern California. No, we're not. The people who are stealing the water are these fucking assholes. And then they do a good job of making you think it's these other situations.

Yeah, they make it seem like everybody else's a ball. They can laugh all the way through the water. And we fight each other about the water. And what should be is the state should be regulating what you can plant. Without question. And you should be using things like cotton and stuff that does not use tons of water. And you use a variety of fucking foods out there, but it should not be shitloads of the worst fucking crop for water in a place where you need water.

Yasha Levin, the guy who went to the oil fields. Yasha Levin is a Kickstarter. He is a journalist who has been writing about the Central Valley water situation for a while. He wants to make a documentary and has a Kickstarter up. The project is called Pistachio Wars. Oh man. Killing California for a snack food. Please donate.

This is a super fucking important story. This documentary needs to get made. And I've read a lot of this guy's stuff. This is the guy to make it. So please Pistachio Wars. Killing California for a snack food. Go to the Kickstarter and give. There's still there's something like actually on people's front porch.

It's just like, ah, well, it sucks. And you see how many pistachios are now. Oh, the idea. It's fucking insane. And my wife loves pistachios and I tell her this and she goes, well, can I not eat pistachios anymore? And I said, it doesn't matter. Yeah.

They own so much. So they're beyond boycott. The only way to stop them is for the government to come in and stop them. They're beyond anything that we could do as people. That's frustrating. That's where they are. But that's it. Like this is what a monopoly is.

This is what when a business gets too big, unless the government wants to stop them, but they pay for the government. Because our government is because Diane Feinstein is the most fucking corrupt. And when Diane Feinstein, when Barbara Boxer was leaving office, she was always involved in negotiations with water. And the day she was leaving office, Diane Feinstein went behind her back and made a deal with Republicans

to fuck everybody over for the Central Valley fucking farmers. And Barbara Boxer was fucking livid. But Diane Feinstein is the government shit. Because she's like, I don't have to ever work with you again. But these people give me money. So she fucked everybody also. They're all fucking people. They're fucking water tunnels.

I believe they're done now. I believe that there's been enough things against them that they cannot happen. But if those water tunnels go through, the fucking Delta smelt are done. And if the Delta smelt die, all the fish all the way up the chain fucking die. It's not like a thing that you have to worry about one fish.

It's all the goddamn fish. Well, and you also don't know, you know, I mean, that's what we're about to find out. The ramifications of what happens when things in nature that are underappreciated go away. What are the ramifications? Yeah. And that's going to be, you know, a very difficult time.

Yeah. You'll miss the days when you thought a crazy lady thought that you could just command bees. When your kids will be like, what are bees? There's a guy who gives a TED talk about what happened when wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone. Oh, right. And if you want to know how nature works together,

go listen to that TED talk. And literally, the river changed shape. That's how much introducing an animal back into an ecosystem makes a difference. It changed the river's shape. Go listen to how it happened. When we take an animal out, it doesn't matter what animal it is, we're fucking ourselves.

You're also, yeah. Please join Planet Change 10. 10, P-L-A-N-I-T Change 10. We're on Twitter. And by the way, if you guys want to know an update on that, I'm still working on it. I've been so fucking busy because of the holidays and all this other shit.

But we're going to go with some companies to get the website done and to get how we can talk to everybody at once. And that's the biggest thing. It's communication and having everyone's numbers and information stored. So that's what we're working on now. Really got a good feeling.

Will people want more environmental ones?