How a Los Angeles couple came to control a water empire

https://la.curbed.com/2016/8/10/12422000/resnick-wonderful-water-california-kern-drought

Now, all that farming requires a ton of water. Fortunately for them, the Resnicks own a majority share of what’s known as the Kern Water Bank. The state spent $75 million developing this massive underground storage facility before mysteriously handing it off to Kern County officials, who then gave much of it to Westside Mutual Water Company, a private water supplier owned by the Resnicks.

They help cause the drought, then buy the aquifers, then sell them to the local counties with exclusive water contracts, then appropriate the water to their exclusive business ventures.