Water corruption rampant, costing taxpayers billions

Dear Editor.

In regards to your stories about how residents have been protesting the water rate increases, you haven’t seen anything yet! The California water contractors who supply water to cities are spending $250 million just on their dog-and-pony show meetings around the Delta and Sacramento last year to satisfy governmental requirements to build a Panama-type underground canal through the Delta that will cost billions of dollars. With the state so broke, these water contractors will be paying for a great share of it and passing the tab onto their California customers: YOU! As most of you probably know, the Delta water flows down through the California Aqueduct to the Delta Mendota Canal near Los Banos, then is stored in the San Benito Reservoir in Merced County, where it is then split between the San Benito County Water District and the Santa Clara Valley Water District. It continues through to Coyote and Anderson Reservoirs that supply customers in Santa Clara County.  

Worse yet for all rate payers, a lot of this water will be channeled to some private entities in Kern County to fatten some billionaires’ wallets. One week before Christmas, 2010, Sen. Diane Feinsten slipped in an earmark on President Obama’s $519-billion spending bill that will help expedite the flow of water directly to her Beverly Hills billionaire buddies, Stewart and Linda Resnick, who own a controlling interest in the privately held Kern Water Bank and Westlands Water District. Resnicks sold “some” of their water rights last year for $78 million to other water contractors. This Kern Water Bank was originally owned by the state of California, after taxpayers invested about $78 million in it. At a secret, closed door meeting in Monterey, the state gave it to the Resnicks, who operate under Roll Global. That corporation owns companies like Paramount Farms, Pom (pomegranate products), Fiji Water, and Tele-Flora to name a few very profitable entities.   

After the state gave the Kern Water Bank to Resnicks’ corporation, the water supply doubled with a great share to them, and the fish population began collapsing. The Resnicks now refuse to honor scientists’ reports and have paid for new studies to be done by who? No one else but the California State Fish and Game Department! Yes, it is unbelievable but you can check the facts.

The current water wars corruption is rampant and has inspired me to write a book as it is a very complex subject that took me about a year of attending meetings around the Delta and in Sacramento to begin to connect the dots. These water contractors operate under an umbrella called Bay Area Delta Conservation Plan, which is why it is hard at first to figure out who are the good or bad guys! This huge scheme is bigger than Bernie Madoff’s pyramid scam.   

The national press is doing a poor job of covering this subject. It is up to each individual to inform yourself and keep protesting. And watch for big donations from the Resnicks and other mega-farmers like John Vidovich of Los Altos, who also sold “some” of his water rights from the Kern Water Bank for $73 million last year, to make big donations to not only Sen. Feinstein but Pres. Obama’s campaign. It’s the old reporter’s rule: Follow the money! You have to hand it to Darlin’ Diane Feinstein. She gives great Christmas presents to her billionaire buddies! It was sure brilliance on her part to sneak this earmark in a week before Christmas when the national press was focused on the two-month tax extension bill and both Congress and the press were eager to go home for the holidays.  

If this subject really interests you, read the biography, “The King of California,” about the first big mega-farmer in Kern County, Jim Boswell, and “Cadillac Desert.” These two books will give you a solid background of the history of the water wars and how nothing ever changes. Boswell drained the entire Tulare Lake when it was the largest body of fresh water west of the Mississippi River. Reading this Boswell biography will make you think you are reading today’s headlines with different names inserted about all the corruption with politicians and the “wink, wink” attitude with laws saying one thing, but designed for enforcement to be ignored by government officials.

Gene Beley, Stockton (Former Morgan Hill resident)