Modesto Irrigation District: 5 takeaways from alleged water theft and misconduct
Since August, The Modesto Bee has produced six stories about turmoil at Modesto Irrigation District — five of which have been about the investigation into director Larry Byrd and his almond orchards at AB La Grange Ranch.
The district launched an investigation in September after Byrd was publicly accused of stealing or misusing MID canal water. The allegations exposed fractures within the district, some political, that are beginning to reveal themselves as the story continues to unfold.
MID provides electricity to more than 130,000 customers in the Modesto area and provides agricultural water to around 2,500 farmers irrigating more than 60,000 acres.
Here are five takeaways from The Bee’s recent coverage.
1. Byrd, at best, may have broken MID policy and misused paid-for water. At worst, he’s alleged to have stolen it. During public comment at an MID board meeting, Byrd was accused of using the district’s canal water to irrigate an almond orchard at AB La Grange that sits outside its boundaries.
If true, the allegations would mean that for nearly a decade, he used tens to hundreds of millions of gallons of MID water outside the district. After the allegations, MID commissioned an outside investigation.
MID insists that its water must stay within its boundaries, a policy questioned by Byrd’s allies, including former U.S. Congressman John Duarte.
However, the 2019 court case Nichols v. MID ruled that growers could not use district water outside its boundaries, even if the property in question straddles district lines, according to The Modesto Focus.
The investigation looked at 436 acres of AB La Grange, about 340 acres of which are within MID boundaries and 96 acres outside it. AB La Grange is co-owned by Larry Byrd, his brother Tim Byrd and landowner Tyler Angle.
When the investigation began, Larry Byrd denied the allegations against him and said he used groundwater from a well, not an MID canal, to irrigate almond trees outside the district.
2. The investigation found that Byrd’s explanation was impossible. But it could not determine if he stole or misused water.
From 2021 to 2024, there were “substantial groundwater deficits” on Byrd’s out-of-district land and “groundwater alone could not have met the full irrigation demands” of the almond trees on it, according to the investigation.
The investigation estimated Byrd was short between 0.65 and 4 acre-feet of water every year, for each acre of land examined. One acre-foot is equal to 325,851 gallons. Four years were looked at, and 96 acres were examined.
While the investigation found that Byrd could not have pumped groundwater from a well to irrigate his out-of-district trees, it could not determine the source of the water.
“The water had to come from someplace, common sense says (canal) water,” said MID board President Robert Frobose when the investigation was presented.
But the investigation was inconclusive on this and failed to implicate Byrd of misuse or theft. This and so many other details of the investigation’s report were hotly contested when it was presented to the board.
3. The report was presented during a three-hour-plus MID board meeting that finished with a tied vote and ended, for now, Byrd’s investigation.
The meeting was dramatic, with accusations flung of theft and corruption that brought forth grievances going back years and condensed them into a few hours.
It was attended by political heavyweights who turned the meeting into another chapter of a decades-long debate over water rights between the moisture-rich West Side of Stanislaus County and the drier east side where Byrd’s ranch is.
Byrd demanded the board abandon any attempts to further the investigation, which he called a “witch hunt,” “a lie” and “fake news.”
“This opens a can of worms that we probably don’t want to open,” Byrd said. “We’ve already got the investigation done, why fester it and make it worse?”
Frobose and Director Chris Ott voted in favor of further investigation. Byrd and Director Janice Keating voted no on the motion. Byrd’s ability to vote on whether to continue an investigation into himself was heavily questioned.
4. Ethics experts said Byrd had a clear conflict of interest. After the meeting, one question surfaced more than others: Should Byrd have voted on whether to continue an investigation into allegations that he stole water?
“That’s an easy, obvious no,” said Gerard Wellman, a California State University, Stanislaus, political science professor who teaches a course on public service ethics.
MID’s explanation for why he did, combined with Byrd’s past allegations of conflict of interest, the board’s handling of the investigation’s findings, a contentious meeting when the findings were presented and a perceived lack of interest from MID staff to try to find out more, have led to questions about the district’s integrity.
Ahead of the presentation of Byrd’s investigation at MID’s December meeting, Director John Boer IV was advised to recuse himself from discussion or any vote that followed — and he did. Boer listed himself as farm manager for a company named T&S Byrd, which is owned by Tim Byrd, on his financial disclosure documents.
Larry Byrd, elected to the board in 2011, had also recused himself from votes over the years. But not this time. If he had, the investigation into him would have continued with a 2-1 vote.
MID’s legal counsel argued that Byrd’s vote was allowed “because he has the right to defend himself on matters of self-governance and potential censure,” according to MID spokesperson Melissa Williams.
5. A few weeks before Byrd’s investigation began, Keating was censured in a unanimous vote for allegedly berating and throwing a clipboard at a staff member in a pattern of abuse said to have begun in 2023.
Keating recused herself and left the room before the item was brought to the board.
In 2024, Keating lost a gender discrimination lawsuit against Frobose, who represents Division 3, and was ordered to pay attorney fees as a result.
