Modesto water district president calls for state attorney general to investigate
Modesto Irrigation District President Robert Frobose has solicited the state’s attorney general for help with the investigation of his colleague Director Larry Byrd, who’s faced allegations of water misuse and theft.
In a letter to California Attorney General Rob Bonta, Frobose wrote that there is “a cloud over both Director Byrd and MID itself” because its board has not been able to “vote fairly and objectively” or “provide direction to staff to complete the necessary investigation.”
“The significance of this issue cannot be overstated. If the allegations of misuse of MID surface water by Director Byrd and his partners in AB La Grange are true, the value of the misused water is extremely high,” Frobose wrote in his letter.
MID provides electricity to more than 130,000 customers in the Modesto area and agricultural water to around 2,500 farmers irrigating more than 60,000 acres. The district launched an investigation in September after Byrd was publicly accused of stealing or misusing MID canal water on his almond orchards in eastern Stanislaus County.
But a series of political moves, which included Byrd voting against investigating himself further, has prevented deeper inquiry and sparked cover-up accusations against MID. Frobose said he believes asking for help from state authorities will reveal the truth.
“The potential amount of public resources that allegedly could have been misused or embezzled will depend on what a further investigation provides,” wrote Frobose, who cited one estimate that showed Byrd’s alleged misuse was worth more than $240,000.
Accusations and denials
Byrd’s orchards are only partially within MID’s boundaries. In the water-barren eastern part of the county, thirsty almond trees are nourished by MID’s canal water or by increasingly scarce groundwater. Byrd maintains he used groundwater on his trees.
But an engineering firm hired by MID found that this was impossible and that there isn’t enough groundwater to be able to keep his crop alive. The accusation against Byrd is that he either used paid-for MID canal water on crops outside the boundary, which would be against policy, or outright stole it.
Byrd flatly denies the allegations, saying Frobose’s efforts are a “personal vendetta” and “a witch hunt” stemming from the district’s decision not to renew the contract of Ronda Lucas, MID’s attorney at the time.
“Larry has never stole one drop of water from MID,” Byrd told The Modesto Bee on Friday.
Frobose said in his letter that there is no way Byrd kept hundreds of acres of water-hungry almond trees alive without using canal water — the only other source of irrigation besides groundwater.
Among the several attachments in his nearly 150-page package to Bonta, the MID board president included Byrd’s billing records published in The Valley Citizen. The records indicate Byrd underpaid for his in-district water and show discrepancies among documents.
Frobose accused Byrd of using his institutional knowledge of MID and his past as a ditch-tender — an MID employee in charge of monitoring meters and documenting water usage — to exploit the district’s systems for personal gain.
“Given the severity of the allegations and the potential negative financial impact of a determination that Director Byrd did, in fact, misuse district water, this is a matter of such significant public interest to MID’s customers, the local community, and Tuolumne River stakeholders that I believe it warrants the oversight of, and a thorough investigation by, the Attorney General,” Frobose wrote.
Byrd’s AB La Grange Ranch includes about 500 acres of almond orchards, 100 acres of which are not within MID’s service area, according to Frobose.
AB La Grange is owned by Byrd, his brother Tim Byrd and their business partner Tyler Angle. In February, the Fair Political Practices Commission launched an investigation into Larry Byrd for allegedly violating the Political Reform Act after he voted against continuing the separate investigation into allegations against him.
