Modesto Irrigation District Board Member Larry Byrd has refused to show his pumping records ever since last July 8, when he said he ran his deep well pumps “almost daily and sometimes daily” to irrigate out-of-district almonds on the AB La Grange Ranch where he’s a partner with his brother Tim and Ty Angle. The AB La Grange Ranch is leased from owners of properties known as the “Rodoni” and “Rairden” ranches in southeastern Stanislaus County.

After our last report about Byrd pumping river water across parcel and property lines, a public-spirited citizen sent us several years of pumping records he gathered from the State Water Resources Control Board (WRCB). Unlike pumping records for groundwater, riparian records are in a public database. The pumping records are listed under parcel numbers for Rodoni and Rairden acreage along the Tuolumne River.

Byrd’s records for the Rodoni and Rairden properties he leases along the Tuolumne River defy belief. Consider first of all that both properties contain irrigated pastureland. The application for the Rodoni riparian pump says the “stated use” for the river water will be, “50 acres for pasture.” The Rairden pump “stated use” is for 50 acres of almonds and 40 acres of pasture.

The reported use for the Rodoni river pump for 2022 was 706 acre-feet. That’s for 50 acres of pastureland. Reported use for the Rairden pump from October 1, 2022 to September 30, 2023, purportedly for 50 acres of almonds and 40 acres of pastureland, was 36.47 acre-feet.

The differences in expected water use — it obviously takes more water to irrigate 50 acres of almonds and 40 acres of pastureland than it does for 50 acres of pastureland only — can most likely be explained by the extension of a pipe from the Rodoni pump to the Rairden property on November 16, 2020. Once that pipe was installed, usage of the Rairden riparian pump dropped drastically. Usage from the Rodoni pump increased.

Nonetheless, the numbers are incredible. From October 1, 2023, to September 20, 2024, reported usage from the Rairden pump was 9.6 acre-feet. In 2023, reported Rodoni pump usage was 565 acre-feet; it was 595 acre-feet in 2024.

The numbers were so bizarre I asked a farmer friend what they could mean. My farmer friend is an old-timer who knows irrigation and AG math.

Think of it this way,” said the old-timer. “That part of the AB ranch up above the river has 367 acres of in-district water and about 130 acres out of district. Of that out-of-district property, about 40 acres are probably serviced by Larry’s deep well electric pump. The other 90 acres is from a diesel pump. Let’s say you get a low water allotment from MID like in 2022, when the allotment was 30 inches. Normal allotment is 42 inches, so you’re already 12 inches short for that 367 acres.”

That much I could follow.

“Now let’s figure what it would take if you were to put five feet of water on those trees like they say they did on the trees and pasture down below,” he said. “The record shows they pumped 706 acre feet in 2022.”

“You’ve now got a deficit of 30 inches on your in-district trees and a deficit of 60 inches on your out-of-district trees. So you’ve got to come up with two-and-a-half acre feet for your in-district trees and five acre feet for those 90 acres out-of-district.”

I was still with him.

“Now far as I know,” said the old-timer, “that deep well diesel pump Larry Byrd says irrigates those out-of-district trees puts out 800 to 850 gallons a minute. Do the math.”

Now I was getting stuck. There are 325,851 gallons in an acre-foot. Far as I could figure, that diesel pump could pump maybe 51,000 gallons an hour. That’s 1,224,000 gallons a day. With a generous round off, that’s about 4 acre-feet a day (3.75+).

“See what I’m sayin’,” said the old-timer. “Ain’t hardly enough hours in the day or days in the year to put that much water on them trees even with that pump running 24/7.”

“I’m starting to get lost,” I said.

“Well,” said the old-timer, “You’ve got 367 acres that’s 2.5 acre feet short. Remember, down below by the river they’re irrigatin’ with 5 feet. Up above, where you’ve got surface water, it’s 2022 and you’ve only got 30 inches. So you’re 30 inches short. That’s 2.5 acre feet.”

“Okay so far,” I said.

“Now on that out-of-district land you’ve got to put on 5 acre feet. That’s 90 acres times 5. That’s 450 acre-feet. And you’ve got 367 acres times 2.5 acre- feet. That’s 917.5 total acre feet.”

“So the total acre feet if you were to do on the ground away from the river what you were doing with the river water would be would be 1367.5 acre- feet,” I said.

“Now you’re gettin’ it,” said the old-timer. “Do the math.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “You mean if I multiply 4 acre-feet a day times 365 days there’s not enough water?”

The old-timer got quiet. Then he said, “Do the math. And remember, that 4 acre-feet is rounded up.”

I did the math: 4 times 365 comes to 1460 acre-feet. And that was with the rounded up number.

“Wow,” I said. “Even if that diesel ran 24/7 it could just barely put out as much water as they’re putting down on that riparian land. And that’s with the pump output number rounded up.”

“You got it,” said the old-timer.

No one is suggesting Larry Byrd and his partners are putting five acre-feet on the ground they irrigate away from the Tuolumne River. On the other hand, why would they be putting that much water on 90 acres of pastureland and 50 acres of almonds they irrigate along the river? It’s an unconscionable amount of water to be taking from one of the most severely stressed rivers in the American west.

In 2020, when Byrd joined the pipe from the Rodoni riparian pump to a pipe he installed on the Rairden property, he apparently began irrigating the Rairden property with river water from the Rodoni pump. According to CDWR, it’s illegal to cross property and parcel lines with riparian water.

In 2017, the total combined usage for the Rodoni and Rairden pumps was 409.7 acre-feet. By 2021, usage had climbed to 540 acre-feet for the Rodoni pump alone. Then there is that astronomical total of 706 acre-feet for 2022, again for the Rodoni pump. Even if Larry Byrd had an exemption or permit to transfer riparian water across parcel and property lines, using Tuolumne River water so extravagantly is a gross abuse of the public trust.

California was the last state in the nation to implement groundwater law with the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act in 2014. Now the state needs to look into more robust and vigilant regulation of river water. Riparian water grabs by the likes of Larry Byrd and his partners should no longer go under the radar of public oversight and correction.