(Wine-Searcher) - A protest about tree removal turns out to have really been about the ongoing issue of water rights.

Paso Robles area residents are outraged by recent clearcutting of oak trees on the property of Justin Vineyards, with aerial photos of a denuded hill spurring 200 people to attend a protest meeting last week.

San Luis Obispo County officials issued Justin a stop-work order, not because of the missing trees per se, but because of potential grading violation.

The real issue, though, is not trees but water, and it's a familiar one forJustin's owners Stewart and Lynda Resnick, whose net worth was estimated by Forbes last year at $4.3 billion. The winery filed plans with the county to build a 6.5-million gallon irrigation pond that would draw from the groundwater that the neighbors all share.

"It's one thing if they were just putting in a vineyard," Saxum owner/winemaker Justin Smith told Wine-Searcher. "We all share the same groundwater. When you build a reservoir you're stockpiling it. Half of it's going to evaporate. So you've got to pull out twice as much as you need for your vineyard. It's something nobody does around here. If you're stockpiling and you're planning on putting your neighbors out of business, that's scary."

Moreover, Smith says that the Justin Vineyards property doesn't actually need an irrigation pond.

"It's wedged between two vineyards that are completely dry farmed," Smith says. "You could dry farm there."

But cornering the market on water, both in California and in Fiji, and using a floor full of lawyers in their building to defend it, is what has made the Resnicks so wealthy.

The Resnicks, who bought Justin Winery in 2010, are the largest growers of almonds, pistachios and pomegranates in the US. They have been able to keep expanding during California's drought because of their water supply. They own Pom Wonderful, which was forced by the Federal Trade Commission to stop claiming that its juice cures erectile dysfunction and other maladies. The Supreme Court recently declined to hear their appeal. But Pom Wonderful is just a tool for selling more pomegranates.

Forbes estimated last year that every year, the Resnicks use as much of California's water as San Francisco residents use in a decade, spraying most of it on their thirsty almond and pistachio trees. These trees require a lot more water than grapevines; it takes a gallon of water to produce one nut. But the Resnicks can do what they want because of their foresight.