BAKERSFIELD — The Kern River, dry as bone, meets Interstate 5 on an expanse of land no longer tamed by agriculture. The last stand of cotton was plowed under a decade ago, and now tumbleweeds hide jackrabbits and coyotes.
But cotton's white gold has given way to new riches stored deep below the ground. That's where 730,000 acre-feet of water -- a lake worth more than $180 million on the open market -- awaits the pump.
In a new era of buying and selling water, there may be no bigger stockpile than the Kern Water Bank. It was conceived in the mid-1980s by the state Department of Water Resources as a way to store water in the aquifer in wet years so that it can be pumped out in dry years.
Today, though, the massive underground pool is controlled by one corporate farmer, wealthy Los Angeles businessman Stewart Resnick, who owns Paramount Farming Co., the Franklin Mint, and Teleflora, a flowers-by-wire service.
The Kern bank, which was intended to help balance out the state's water supply to cities, farms and fish, has instead allowed Paramount Farming to double its acres of nuts and fruits since 1994.
In recent years, Paramount received enough water from the state to irrigate its existing orchards and withdraw enough water from the bank to plant more trees.
Paramount Farming is now the largest grower and seller of almonds and pistachios in the world, according to an international business directory. Paramount Citrus, also owned by Resnick, ranks as the largest citrus grower and packer in the U.S.
Critics say Resnick's control of the water bank is a glaring example of the perversion of water marketing -- how a handful of California's most powerful and wealthy men continue to grab the state's most precious natural resource.
The state purchased the 20,000 acres along I-5 and funded the initial planning and plumbing, a public investment totaling $74 million. But the water bank went from public to private hands after a series of closed meetings between state water bureaucrats and large water contractors, including Paramount.
"A water bank designed as a safeguard against drought is being used by Paramount and other mega-farms to grow even bigger," said John Gibler of Public Citizen, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization founded by Ralph Nader.
"In some cases, this water is being promised to major developers, such as Newhall Ranch, as a way to get thousands of houses green-lighted by county governments. A public resource has been privatized by and for the wealthiest."
