One of the most glaring omissions from last year’s 4Creeks investigation into Larry Byrd’s water use on the AB La Grange Ranch was any mention of the orchard on the Rairden property, where a total of seventy-two acres of almond trees are thriving and productive. The AB La Grange Ranch comprises two properties, known as the “Rodoni” and “Rairden” ranches.

A little over thirty acres of those almond trees on the Rairden property are within Modesto Irrigation District (MID) boundaries. Forty-two acres are outside those boundaries.

Very early on in the controversy about allegations that Byrd had been using in-district water on out-of-district trees, multiple sources said that Byrd’s electrical usage records would reveal how much water he pumped onto the orchards on the Rodoni and Rairden properties, where Byrd and his partners planted over five-hundred acres of almonds. After nine months of public inquiry and an investigation that took ten weeks, there are still no answers to how much MID surface water Byrd put onto his out-of-district trees.

Byrd claims he irrigated the out-of-district trees on the Rodoni property with groundwater pumped with a diesel pump. Byrd’s brother and partner, Tim Byrd, has said there was no meter on that diesel pump and therefore no way to measure how much groundwater went onto the out-of-district trees. The 4Creeks investigation concluded the out-of-district trees could not have been irrigated with groundwater from the diesel pump.

Todd Sill, who was ranch manager on the AB La Grange Ranch from 2016 until January of 2023, has said the diesel pump was “seldom” used and that there was a meter on it when he left the ranch. A co-worker is willing to support those claims. Sill also kept detailed records recording water use during his time as ranch manager. He’s willing to provide those records for public review.

One of Todd Sill’s first concerns after reading the 4Creeks report was the omission of any reference to irrigation on the seventy-two acres on the Rairden property.

“The pump for that deep well on the Rairden is an electric pump,” said Sill. “We hardly ever used that pump and the power records should show how little we used it and how much more we used the surface water pump.”

One would think that since the records for power usage on the Rairden would be definitive, both MID management and Byrd himself would be eager to provide them. Before the 4Creeks investigation, Byrd said he “looked forward” to clearing his name and had “nothing to hide.” Why then is he hiding his power usage records?

In response to a public records request for electrical power usage on the Rairden orchard sent last February, MID sent redacted reports. The man with “nothing to hide” chose to hide the truth. The omissions are damning.

Based on general rules-of-thumb, forty-two acres of almonds require a minimum of three acre-feet of water per year for mature trees. That’s roughly one-hundred twenty acre-feet per year. Thirty acres would require at least ninety acre-feet per year. Thus, seventy-two acres would require a little over two-hundred acre-feet per year, and more in years with excessive heat. Power records for the two electric pumps on the Rairden property should therefore reveal how much water was pumped onto the Rairden orchard, both in- and out-of-district.

Both Larry Byrd and MID management have a fiduciary obligation to account for water use throughout the district. Byrd sits on the MID Board of Directors. MID management has failed to provide data accounting for water use on the Rairden property, even though it has Byrd’s power usage records. Byrd’s claims about pumping groundwater from a diesel pump on the Rodoni property have been contradicted both by Todd Sill’s testimony and by the 4Creeks investigation. He and MID have refused to provide records for power use on the Rairden orchard.

The redacted copies of power and billing records for power usage on the Rairden property are full of black marks. Today, there are even more black marks on the reputations of Larry Byrd and MID management.