Erroneous accusations that a wealthy couple, Stewart and Lynda Resnick, have been hoarding water amid the Southern California wildfires have been spreading widely online.

The owners of Wonderful Co., behind Fiji Water and other brands, use a lot of water, but it's only a fraction of California’s usage. No one entity owns the water.

Since the beginning of the January 2025 fires around Los Angeles, claims circulated that one billionaire couple owned "most of California's water," with some people implying they were hoarding it from firefighting efforts.

The couple’s company has a majority stake in a water bank in the San Joaquin Valley and uses vast amounts of water to manage its nearly 130,000-acre California agriculture operation. But the claim that the Resnicks own nearly all — or even a large portion — of California’s water is a massive exaggeration.

There are misconceptions circulating about who’s at fault for the fires burning tens of thousands of acres across Los Angeles.

President Donald Trump on Monday issued a memorandum directing the Secretary of Commerce and the Secretary of the Interior to develop a new

Stewart and Lynda Resnick, an ultra-wealthy couple from California, are being accused of hoarding water when it is needed to fight the wildfires in California. The Resnicks own the Los Angeles-based Wonderful Company — which claims to be one of the largest food producers in the world.

Forbes' latest edition of its Fresh Take newsletter focuses on a misconception about water politics amid Los Angeles wildfires, Red Dye No. 3's ban and more.

The most likely source of these hoarding rumors is that the Resnicks own the Westside Mutual Water Company. That company has a 57% stake in the Kern Groundwater Bank Authority, which operates the Kern Water Bank, a vast stretch of land that can hold up to 1 million acre feet of groundwater.

Fires across the Los Angeles area have killed at least 25 people. The Palisades and Eaton fires continue to burn in Southern California.

emerged amid general criticism about water management in California sparked by the fierce Los Angeles fires. A burned fire hydrant drips water in front of charred trees in Malibu, Calif., Jan. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File) Lynda Resnick and ...

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