The July 8 meeting of the Modesto Irrigation District (MID) Board of Directors took an off road detour at the end of public commentary by former Oakdale Irrigation District Board Member Linda Santos when she queried MID Director Larry Byrd about water usage on property he farms on Stanislaus County’s east side.
Santos had been castigating Byrd for his role in terminating water attorney Ronda Lucas’s contract. Lucas became a controversial figure after settling a 2019 lawsuit based on alleged gender harassment from an MID Board member. None of the parties involved in the settlement admitted any wrongdoing.* After leaving MID, she was rehired early in January of 2023, on a 4-1 vote. At the time, Director Byrd was one of her more ardent supporters.
“I’m the one that got her back,” he said after last Tuesday’s meeting.
He also said that he now supported terminating Lucas’s contract because of too much “overlap” among the district’s many water attorneys.
“We didn’t have the work for her anymore,” he said.
Linda Santos and many other local farmers and ranchers have been strong supporters of Lucas for years, not only because of her considerable legal prowess but also because of her passionate commitment to protecting local water rights from state demands to increase flows for declining fish populations.
After several minutes’ criticism of Byrd’s role in terminating Lucas’s contract, Santos claimed that Byrd was growing water-hungry almonds on property he owned outside the MID district. The implication was that he was using MID surface water to irrigate the orchards.
Later, Byrd said the he irrigated the orchards in question with groundwater.
“I irrigate with deep well pumps,” said Byrd Tuesday afternoon. “I run my deep well pumps almost daily when it’s hot. Sometimes I run them daily.”
The property Santos and Byrd were referring to is on what is now known as the “AB Ranch.” It was formerly the Rodoni Ranch. The Rodoni Ranch was leased by Tyler Angle around the time investors were buying up grazing land in eastern Stanislaus County’s rolling hills for the purpose of converting it to almond orchards, over ten years ago. One of the biggest investors, with over 7,000 acres, was a Bay Area investment group called Trinitas Partners. Trinitas has since declared bankruptcy.
At some point, Larry Byrd became partners with Angle, hence the name, “AB Ranch” (Angle/Byrd).
While on the MID Board, Byrd has become a strong advocate for MID’s Groundwater Replenishment Program (GRP), which offers surface water to farmers who need to meet requirements imposed by the state’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SIGMA). The act limits pumping groundwater unless the pumping is done from sustainable aquifers. Most Valley cities and towns now survive exclusively on groundwater.
As things now stand, groundwater depletion throughout the Valley has caused billions of dollars of damage from subsidence — sinking of the ground due to over pumping. The San Joaquin Valley is the largest known area of severe subsidence in the world.
Byrd has been a persistent advocate for selling MID surface water to eastside farmers for $60 an acre foot during years of higher than average rainfall. He even pushed for the GRP to be activated this year, when rainfall was only 80% of average. People who follow the water market have argued $60 per acre-foot is far too low. A Merced Irrigation District program similar to MID’s GRP charges $350 an acre-foot.
Former MID Director Nick Blom voted with Larry Byrd to sell GRP water at $60 an acre foot and was subsequently voted out of office. The current price for water from the GRP is $200 an acre-foot.
For comparative examples, consider Diablo Grande, a residential development in the Diablo Range, opposite Stanislaus County’s eastern foothill farms. Diablo Grande residents are facing $600 per month fees for their residential water use. On average, an acre-foot of water will serve two families of four or five people for a year.
Critics of Larry Byrd’s push for $60 an acre foot for eastside farmers have argued he has conflicts of interest because of partnerships with eastside growers. Byrd’s recent admission that he pumps groundwater “almost daily” will only add weight to their claims.
In the meantime, MID continues working with state authorities to assure it maintains the district’s own water rights amidst demands for more water for fish. As for firing Ronda Lucas, MID Board Chairman Robert Frobose said, after voting against terminating her contract,
“I can guarantee we have a better chance of keeping our water with Ronda Lucas than without her.”
For now and the foreseeable future, however, MID will fight its water wars without her.
*An earlier version of this report erroneously stated Lucas had won in court; as noted above, the contending parties settled with no admission of wrongdoing from either side.
Protecting local water rights against state demands is about far more than fish. Central Valley farmers and residents could significantly degrade delta water quality that will affect millions of Bay Area residents who rely on water pumped from the delta. The degradation could affect water quality for the California State Water Project, one of the largest public water and power utilities in the world that provides drinking water for more than 27 million people, including irrigation water for thousands of westside San Joaquin Valley farmers.
Great article Eric!👍
I’m all for any advocate that conveys the rights of property owners to keep the water rights belonging to their own property. I didn’t see anyone else state or otherwise making my property payments which INCLUDED my water and mineral rights FOR MY PROPERTY. How is it the state can come in because of what they’ve allowed to happen and tell me I HAVE TO GIVE UP MY WATER for the good of all the others that abused!!!! NOPE not seeing it from any angle. Great article
How is being on the MID board and also a water customer with LOTS of land growing crops that TAKE twice as much water as we get in rainfall not unsustainable and a big fat ass conflict of interest?
Vote to disband MID.
The Larry Byrd that says – they have a moral obligation to turn off their pumps ( referring to eastside farmers over pumping the under ground water supply) say you are a hypocrite without saying you are a hypocrite.
Rhonda Lucas by all accounts is an exceptional water and environmental law attorney. That is why Larry Byrd said as much when she was first forced out by former Board President John Mensinger. Larry said it again when he had the first opportunity to bring Rhonda back in January 2003. Even now, when Byrd made the motion to terminate Lucas, he could not cite cause other than budget. So, rather than evaluate work product and cost-benefit analysis of the entire legal team, Larry moved to dispatch the legal mind leading the District’s fight against the State water grab. The greatest threat to our region is the State Water Grab and the Don Pedro FERC license renewal. We are talking about billions of economic activity at stake, so why dick with the legal team? Total savings? $400,000. Make that make sense.
But here is the suspicious aspect of Larry’s actions. To my knowledge, Larry is NOT advocating budget cuts anywhere else across the entire organization. And he did not seek to address the legal budge in general. He only wanted to rid the District of Rhonda. Of course, the appropriate time to discuss budget concerns was when the GM and department heads presented their budget thoughts and projections later in coming meetings as planned. This seems personal for Larry because it made no institutional sense.
So, why has Larry done a 180 degree about face on Rhonda? Eric Caine’s article indicates Larry Byrd has some business relationships on the east side of the County, outside the district, that may present a conflict of interest. Was Rhonda Lucas wise to an ethics issue?
I know this is an unpopular opinion, but the MID’s battle against the State Water Board is a waste of money. The State Water Board is trying to balance the beneficial uses of Tuolumne River water – agriculture is an important one, but so is commercial and recreational fishing, municipal use, the environment and the fisheries. Irrigators take up to 80 percent of the river flow out during critical times for salmon. That’s hard to justify. The river has to be more than an irrigation canal. The lawsuits will cost many millions of dollars, take many years to resolve, and in the meantime, the river will suffer and migrating fish and the health of the Delta will deteriorate, possibly beyond repair.
Tim Moran: It’s estimated 23,600 acre feet of MID water are lost to seepage from Modesto Reservoir alone. Orchards around the reservoir pump that “seepage,” turning into profits for Larry Byrd’s partner. There are losses from seepage, spillage and other means throughout the east side. Those losses can and should be converted to flows for our rivers.
Doesn’t Byrd lease grazing land around the reservoir from the MID? Sounds like he is more of a “partner” than he claims. #DirtyByrd
It’s nice to know who’s running their deep water Wells, who we can hold accountable for land subsidence, and aquifer destruction, go ahead and post publicly, if you’re running your deep water, well, be proud of this, then we’ll be proud to add you to the list of people who’ve destroyed our community. And if you’re relying on MID irrigation water, also note you can’t make it honest living when someone else is paying for your water, the electric rate payers.
Do you really think you’re operating a sustainable orchard when you only get a third of your water requirement from rainfall that other 60% has to come from taking it from others, unless you’re going to follow 60% of your land to collect the water, that’s something to think about.