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<h1><span lang=EN-ZW>latimes.com<o:p></o:p></span></h1>
<h2><span lang=EN-ZW>Something's not right about this California water deal <o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<h3><span lang=EN-ZW>A lawsuit by water agencies and environmental groups
contends the Kern Water Bank transaction was essentially a gift of public
property to private interests and therefore violates the state constitution.<o:p></o:p></span></h3>
<p><b><span lang=EN-ZW>Michael Hiltzik<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p><b><span lang=EN-ZW>August 18, 2010<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
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<p><b><span lang=EN-ZW>Students of California's history of gold and oil rushes
know it's filled with examples of profiteering, conspiracy, influence-peddling
and other chicanery.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p><b><span lang=EN-ZW>So there's no reason the story should be any different
with that liquid gold of the 21st century, water.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p><b><span lang=EN-ZW>That's the theme of a lawsuit filed a few weeks ago
alleging there's something smelly about how a group of private interests
— notably a huge agribusiness owned by the wealthy Southern California
couple Stewart and Lynda Resnick — got control of an underground water
storage project the state had already spent $75 million to develop.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p><b><span lang=EN-ZW>The lawsuit was filed by a group of water agencies and
environmental groups contending that the transaction was essentially a gift of
public property to private interests and therefore violates the state
constitution.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p><b><span lang=EN-ZW>They're asking a judge to reverse the deal. That way,
they contend, the storage facility can be integrated into the state's water
management plan, so a precious and dwindling natural resource can serve
everyone in the state, not just a few powerful farm companies and real estate
developers.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p><b><span lang=EN-ZW>"By giving this resource away, not only have we
lost money on the deal, but we've lost a mechanism to use this water for the
most beneficial purposes," Adam Keats of the Tucson-based <a
href="http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/">Center for Biological Diversity,</a>
the lead attorney on the lawsuit, told me recently.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p><b><span lang=EN-ZW>The storage facility is the <a
href="http://www.kwb.org/main.htm">Kern Water Bank,</a> a complex of wells,
pumps and pipelines on a 20,000-acre parcel of abandoned farmland southwest of
Bakersfield. The water bank was initially part of the $1.75-billion bond-funded
<a href="http://www.swc.org/isswp.aspx">State Water Project,</a> which provides
water for 25 million Californians and irrigates 750,000 acres.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p><b><span lang=EN-ZW>For reasons that still seem murky, in 1995 the state
gave up on the bank and turned it over to Kern County water authorities. They
promptly ceded it to a local consortium of public and private entities, the
largest of which was Westside Mutual Water Co.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p><b><span lang=EN-ZW>The lawsuit observes that Westside is a subsidiary of
the Resnick-owned <a href="http://www.paramountfarms.com/home/">Paramount
Farms,</a> the largest grower and processor of pistachios and almonds in the
world.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p><b><span lang=EN-ZW>Paramount and the other users pay for the water put into
the bank, but the storage capacity assures a steady irrigation supply even in
dry years. Paramount acknowledges that without the water bank, it probably
wouldn't have planted the nut trees, which can't survive without regular
watering.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p><b><span lang=EN-ZW>The second-biggest player in the water bank is <a
href="http://www.tejonranch.com/">Tejon Ranch</a> Co., which is planning a
26,000-acre resort community in the nearby Tehachapi Mountains.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p><b><span lang=EN-ZW>What did the state get for the bank in 1995? The buyers
gave up the right to 45,000 acre-feet of water annually from the State Water
Project, an entitlement some value at $30 million.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p><b><span lang=EN-ZW>But the lawsuit says that in real terms, the state got
almost nothing. The water, it contends, was "paper water," a phantom
allocation from a portion of the State Water Project that will never be built
and therefore has no value.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p><b><span lang=EN-ZW>In fact, the lawsuit says, because the annual fees paid
to the State Water Project by the bank's owners had been partially based on the
allocation, they actually <i>saved</i> money by giving up the rights. (One acre-foot
of water is about 326,000 gallons, or <a
href="http://www.gwrsystem.com/about/need.html">a year's supply</a> for two
families of four.)<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p><b><span lang=EN-ZW>Officers of the Kern Water Bank say the lawsuit is
simply a case of sour grapes, and note that the new owners have invested more
than $30 million to turn the state's pipe dream into reality.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p><b><span lang=EN-ZW>"This wasn't perceived to be a gift at the
time," says William D. Phillimore, chairman of the Kern Water Bank
Authority, chairman of Westside Mutual Water Co., and executive vice president
of Paramount Farms. "It was considered a fairly risky proposition."<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p><b><span lang=EN-ZW>Westside and the other new owners overcame bureaucratic
roadblocks that had flummoxed the state, he says. They completed the design,
installed all the necessary equipment and maintain the facility today.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p><b><span lang=EN-ZW>"This is something that people paid for 15 years
ago, and because of the money they've invested it's perceived at the moment to
be a relative success. I don't think any of the participants would look kindly
at someone saying it should not have happened."<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p><b><span lang=EN-ZW>Now we come to the direct beneficiaries of the deal. The
owner of Paramount and the Westside water company is <a
href="http://www.roll.com/">Roll International Corp.,</a> one of America's
largest private companies. It's owed by the multimillionaire Resnicks.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p><b><span lang=EN-ZW>You may know Roll better as the former owner of the
collectibles firm Franklin Mint and as the purveyor today of Fiji Water. That's
the paragon of conspicuous consumption marketed on the theme that it's socially
responsible to import your bottled drinking water from an idyllic Pacific
island where only about <a href="http://www.who.int/countries/fji/en/">half the
population</a> has access to protected water sources, and where the government
is a <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8231717.stm">military
junta</a> whose <a
href="http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/country%2C%2C%2CANNUALREPORT%2CFJI%2C%2C4c2aff9e28%2C0.html">disdain
for civil liberties</a> wouldn't raise eyebrows at a conference of Mideast oil
sheikdoms. The Resnicks hang with green activists such as Barbra Streisand and
Laurie David, so no one examines their marketing too closely.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p><b><span lang=EN-ZW>Roll International hasn't played an entirely positive
role on water issues in the Central Valley. Back in September, Stewart Resnick
insinuated himself into the question of whether the severe drought in the
region should be blamed on environmental restrictions designed to help revive
fisheries and river habitats.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p><b><span lang=EN-ZW>This fatuous fish-vs.-people controversy had been ginned
up with the help of experts like TV commentator Sean Hannity and Rep. Tom
McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks), whose goal was to pin the drought not on Mother
Nature but on the <a
href="http://articles.latimes.com/2010/mar/14/business/la-fi-hiltzik14-2010mar14">"environmental
left."</a><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p><b><span lang=EN-ZW>In a letter to Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Resnick
accused federal agencies of "sloppy science" in imposing those
restrictions. He demanded a new scientific study.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p><b><span lang=EN-ZW>Feinstein, possibly aware that Resnick and his wife had
made political donations of nearly $500,000 over the previous four years,
mostly to Democrats, calculated how high she needed to jump. She pushed the
government to fund a study by the National Academy of Sciences, which as it
turned out reported in March that the restrictions were, indeed, <a
href="http://articles.latimes.com/2010/mar/19/local/la-me-water-academy19-2010mar19">"scientifically
justified."</a><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p><b><span lang=EN-ZW>Phillimore, the Paramount executive, says that "the
water bank enabled us to plant permanent crops," because Paramount knew it
could water its trees even in droughts. That sounds like an acknowledgement
that the water bank has encouraged business decisions that wouldn't otherwise
be smart for a semiarid region.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p><b><span lang=EN-ZW>As water becomes even more precious, it will soon be
obvious that such usage isn't smart under any circumstances.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p><b><span lang=EN-ZW>If one is forced to choose between devoting water to
sustaining nut trees permanently in a near-desert, or finding the most
efficient use for it among all possible options, what would be the right way to
go — that is, if the choice weren't already made via an ill-considered
decision now 15 years old?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p><b><span lang=EN-ZW>Michael Hiltzik's column appears Sundays and Wednesdays.
Reach him at <a href="mailto:mhiltzik@latimes.com">mhiltzik@latimes.com</a>,
read past columns at <a href="http://www.latimes.com/hiltzik">latimes.com/hiltzik,</a>
check out <a href="http://www.facebook.com/hiltzik">facebook.com/hiltzik,</a>
and follow <a href="http://www.twitter.com/latimeshiltzik">@latimeshiltzik</a>
on Twitter.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=copyright><b><span lang=EN-ZW>Copyright © 2010, <a
href="http://www.latimes.com/" target="_blank">Los Angeles Times</a><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'>Byron
Leydecker, JcT</span></i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'>Chair, Friends
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