Thread by @ASterling

I am a 5th generation Southern Californian who grew up in an orange grove and in Hollywood. I fled my home state in 2020.
Los Angeles is burning right now because of what We the People have allowed rich people to do. Here is what has happened: 1🧵

It's all because of water. California's current elected officials are as responsible as former ones for taking money from some of the world's richest people: the billionaires Lynda and Stewart Resnick.
They own the Wonderful Company. Here are their brands: 2 🧵

But the Resnicks worked hard for their money, didn't they? And the state approves of what they do!
How many of California's millions or the world's billions know the story I'm about to tell? 3 🧵

Those of us in California have been told to conserve water for years. People always say, "Why not store water in wet years for use in dry ones?"
The State of CA thought of this in 1960 and bought 22,000 acres for the CA water project which became the CA Water Bank 4 🧵

The Kern Water Bank comprises 32 square miles and it contains enough water in one year to supply the City of San Francisco for the next ten years.
California tax payers paid for it. The state built it. Billionaires Stewart and Lynda Resnick own 57% of it. 5 🧵

Stewart and Lynda Resnick owned security guard and cleaning businesses, before buying Teleflora and other brands, and eventually, in 1989, they bought large San Joaquin Valley agriculture business, Paramount Farms. Agriculture uses almost 85% of California's water. 6 🧵

There are two main industries in CA's "Big Valley" - agriculture and oil. Most of the people who work for the Resnick-owned ag businesses live in a town called Lost Hills. It is located far from any freeway in the foothills of the eastern Sierras. 7 🧵

The Wonderful Company built a nice park in Lost Hills. But there's no grocery store, health clinic, library, or any other amenity. The median household income in Lost Hills was less than $41,500 in 2022 but the Wonderful Company also built affordable housing - 81 units 8 🧵

Most of Lost Hills' 2,000 residents work for, or are on disability, or were related to someone working for Wonderful Company ag businesses. Every chronic disease is prevalent in the town and outside of the park, housing is poor, expensive, and has toxic, undrinkable water. 9 🧵

Families live in substandard trailers with coolers that break quickly due to chemical-laded water. Their only water is recycled from oil company operations. It contains petroleum and other cancer-causing chemicals like benzene. Workers become sick in their 30s and 40s. 10 🧵

Roseanna Esparza is a PhD public health advocate. She tells local residents about water safety. At every meeting, employees of the Wonderful Company and Chevron (oil) show up. Roseanna was telling people why to avoid tap water and an oil company rep screamed at her. 11 🧵

At another meeting for water quality, an out-of-town lawyer disputed the state-funded water quality report Roseanna had submitted and called her a liar. Lost Hills children and adults are sick with many ailments from contaminated water. 12 🧵

The oil industry in the area stores its contaminated water and treats it with walnut shells before selling it to agriculture. The Wonderful Company owns all the property around the recycled oil water areas. It is where the pistachios are grown. 13🧵

This area is also the site of the biggest natural gas explosion, blowout, and uncontrolled fire in history. It's called the Lost Hills Blowout or the Bellvue Blowout and it happened in 1998. The massive fire burned for six months. 14 🧵

The Resnicks are not the only billionaires from using California taxpayer dollars, low-cost farm labor (immigrants), and public water. Farther north, during California's biggest drought in history, the town of East Porterville's wells ran dry. 15 🧵

"Water angels" brought in bottled water so that residents of East Porterville could live. Many were elderly and disabled. 16 🧵

The water they needed was right below the dam full of water northeast of town. The stream was clear and running. But a private local company was illegally diverting the water and selling it to big agriculture companies like the Resnicks. 17 🧵

All throughout California's drought, the Resnicks were planting more and more pistachio trees. Each year they used more than the water used by the entire city of Los Angeles and they made sure to cut more and more small farmers off. 18 🧵

But the Wonderful Company Resnicks are feeding people ... the pistachios are ...
primarily being exported overseas
The water is used and the land exploited in California's Valley, but land and crops that fed people in the U.S. were destroyed for crops that only benefited 19 🧵

Poor ag workers and smalltime farmers were not the only ones harmed. California's Delta, where all of the state's big rivers flow to the ocean in SF Bay - was one of the world's top fishing regions - now has few fish and many aren't safe to eat. It's not just "the smelt" 20🧵

How many have heard that the US fights wars in the Middle East for oil? It also fights for pistachios. Since 2005-6, the US has grown to be the world's largest pistachio exporter, a multi-billion-dollar market. 21 🧵

So here is the part of the story where the hero sees the truth and begins to fight back against almost insurmountable odds.
Los Angeles, the home of the billionaire water and pistachio mogul Resnicks, is being completely burned down in uncontrollable, apocalyptic fires 22 🧵

The hero may not know where to turn, because everyone they thought they could trust has contributed to the deadly situation. Celebrities whose very homes are burning down, elected officials, companies with names like "Wonderful" and hearts in their names. 23 🧵

The Institute for Near East Policy and many other National Security organizations have been talking about the threat of terrorism since
the Resnicks bought land and California's water bank in 1994.
That's trusted media personality Stephen Colbert with Lynda Resnick. 24 🧵

Stop believing the many layers of lies. The water to save Los Angeles from the fires is in the San Joaquin Valley and is owned primarily by Stewart and Lynda Resnick.
Visit, rent, and watch @pistachiowars

25 🧵 vimeo.com/pistachiowars