Among the many disturbing consequences of the Modesto Irrigation District’s (MID) failure to complete the investigation into Director Larry Byrd’s irrigation practices on the AB La Grange Ranch, one of the gravest will be the tacit admission that MID cannot or will not determine how much MID surface water is used outside the district.
Keep in mind that MID and the Turlock Irrigation District (TID) depend on Tuolumne River water, as do the City of Modesto, MID ratepayers, and local farmers. All these entities have been vociferously opposed to state proposals to increase flow volumes for fish and San Joaquin Delta ecology because such increases would reduce available water for their own uses.
Now consider the state’s position when it realizes that Director Byrd most certainly went outside district boundaries when he irrigated over 100 acres of out-of-district land he farms on the AB La Grange Ranch in southeastern Stanislaus County…