Last Tuesday’s meeting of the Board of Directors for Modesto Irrigation District (MID) lacked the melodramatic theatrics of the December 16^th affair, when Director Larry Byrd ended an investigation into his irrigation practices with a vote that experts have said was cast in an “egregious” conflict of interest. After that meeting, Byrd and his supporters celebrated the apparent end of an investigation that had proved conclusively Director Byrd was a stone liar when he claimed he irrigated out-of-district trees with groundwater.

Such are the times. Our standards and values have sunk so low that an elected official and his supporters can celebrate openly after an investigation that showed he lied for years about irrigation practices on a ranch he farms with his “partner” Ty Angle.

Somewhere, in an increasingly dimmer past, lying about (mis)use of the very resource you were elected to safeguard would have been enough to cause demands for immediate resignation. Not today. Today, things are different.

And what about that partnership? Larry Byrd has admitted he put no money into his partnership on the AB La Grange Ranch. What then was his role in the partnership? Though he had a cattle business, Byrd had no experience farming almonds, which is what became the ranch’s major source of income after planting over 500 acres of trees in 2016.

What Byrd did have was a long career as an MID lineman and ditch tender on Stanislaus County’s east side, where Ty Angle has thousands of acres of groundwater-dependent trees. And, by 2016, Byrd had become a veteran member of the MID Board of Directors.

Some have surmised that Byrd’s income from the partnership with Angle, reported as $100,000 in 2024 alone, has been a factor in his strident advocacy for dirt-cheap surface water from MID’s Groundwater Replenishment Program (GRP). Eleven of the thirteen businesses that participated in the program when it offered MID surface water at $60 an acre-foot were owned or co-owned by Ty Angle or a close relative.

Last Tuesday, MID Directors voted on a motion to approve a “well-mitigation” program that would reimburse people whose wells went dry because of over-pumping by groundwater-dependent farmers like Ty Angle. The program would be funded by cities within MID and Oakdale Irrigation District boundaries.

During discussion of the motion, Board President Robert Frobose remarked that he thought it was unfair that urban residents from cities like Waterford and Modesto should have to pay for damage caused by farmers who’ve profited from monetizing the groundwater deficits that caused the wells to go dry.

Frobose then asked Byrd whether he thought it fair that his Waterford constituents should have to bear the costs of groundwater deficits caused by east side farmers. Estimates for the groundwater depletion resulting from pumping by farmers like Byrd’s partner have been as high as 90,000 acre-feet per year.

Byrd’s response to Frobose’s question was a long silence. He looked like a smoldering slagheap of barely suppressed guilt, ire, and indignation. It was as though Frobose’s concern for ratepayers and constituents was a horrible breach of etiquette. Byrd never did answer the question.

One thing missing from Byrd’s response was shame. In today’s fetid atmosphere of political corruption, having been proved a stone liar is no big deal. Shamelessness, instead of a vice, has become a necessary asset for public (dis)service.

When he voted in a clear case of conflict of interest, Larry Byrd showed he has more than enough shamelessness to go around.