Former ranch manager Todd Sill hasn’t changed his story about Modesto Irrigation District (MID) Board Member Larry Byrd. Sill claims Byrd “seldom pumped” groundwater from the two deep wells on the ranch he leases in eastern Stanislaus County.
Sill worked for Byrd from 2015 until 2023, after spending 24 years on that same ranch, then known as the Rodoni. Byrd and his partners, his brother Tim and Ty Angle, planted about 500 acres of almonds on the 3,000-acre ranch back in 2015. About 130 acres of those trees are outside MID boundaries.
Sill claims the irrigation system for the almond orchard was installed so that it could serve trees both inside and outside the district with surface water pumped from an MID canal that runs through the ranch. Byrd has claimed he irrigates the out-of-district ground with two deep well pumps, “two or three times a week,” after previously saying he ran them “almost daily” during hot weather…