Meet the California Couple Who Uses More Water Than Every Home in Los Angeles Combined

The Resnicks have amassed this empire by following a simple agricultural precept: Crops need water. Having shrewdly maneuvered the backroom politics of California's byzantine water rules, they are now thought to consume more of the state's water than any other family, farm, or company...

Such an incredible stockpiling of the state's most precious natural resource might have attracted more criticism were it not for the Resnicks' progressive bona fides. Last year, the couple's political and charitable donations topped $48 million. They've spent $15 million on the 2,500 residents of Lost Hills--roughly 600 of whom work for the couple--funding everything from sidewalks, parks, and playing fields to affordable housing, a preschool, and a health clinic.

... But skeptics note that the Resnicks' donations to Lost Hills began a few months after Earth Island Journal documented the yawning wealth gap between the couple and their company town, a dusty assemblage of trailer homes, dirt roads, and crumbling infrastructure...