Should city taxpayers foot the bill for environmental problems caused by farmers far outside town?
Most likely they will, pending votes by an array of agencies throughout Stanislaus County, including Modesto, over the next two weeks.
The average person will not feel the financial impact directly. But agencies getting people’s tax dollars will – in this case, the cities of Modesto, Oakdale, Riverbank and Waterford, plus Stanislaus County and the Modesto and Oakdale irrigation districts.
The culprit: millions of almond trees at the county’s east edge, whose owners – if they’re outside MID boundaries – for years have fed them with groundwater pumped from an aquifer that could become depleted.
That’s an environmental problem. The consequences could prove historic, but the initial result is damage to 29 neighboring wells, some of which went dry and all of which need to be fixed or replaced.
Meanwhile, various agencies in the region must share with the state government updated plans to keep underground water supplies healthy. They’ve spent lots of time and money developing a Groundwater Use Management Program plus a Well Mitigation Plan and must present them to the state by the end of January.
Included in these plans is an account to address well damage. The agencies all will contribute a total of $300,000 annually, assuming the agencies approve the plans.
The Modesto City Council did, Jan. 13. So did MID, although its board president – Robert Frobose – openly questioned whether it’s fair to have everyone cover an expense caused by a few.
“Modesto city people should not be funding the damage they’re doing to the aquifer,” Frobose said at the Jan. 13 meeting. “MID ratepayers should not be funding the damage,” nor should people in Waterford, Riverbank, Oakdale or anywhere else, he said.
The only area in the entire basin suffering low groundwater levels, Frobose noted, is what’s called the nondistrict east, where east Stanislaus growers rely on wells, refusing to buy surface water offered by MID. The aquifer there loses up to 90,000 acre-feet of water each year, studies show – a dramatic validation of dire predictions by Modesto hydrologist Vance Kennedy in the years before his death in 2023.
MID has driven recent headlines for investigating accusations that one of its elected leaders, Board Director Larry Byrd, stole MID water to feed almond trees outside district boundaries near La Grange in the nondistrict east area.
The probe found that Byrd’s trees required more than the groundwater Byrd pumped, suggesting he and his partners misused resources he was elected to protect.
He cast the deciding vote that killed further investigation meant to remove doubt. Government ethics expert Ann Skeet of Santa Clara University equated a vote on one’s own investigation with a betrayal of public trust.
In a tense moment Tuesday, Frobose asked Byrd whether it’s fair that Byrd’s constituents in Waterford help pay for damage caused by Byrd and others pumping in the nondistrict east. Byrd said nothing during an ensuing 12-second staredown with Frobose.
Byrd had stridently advocated to sell MID water to the nondistrict east at below-market prices – before it became widely known that some of his orchards are outside district boundaries.
“It makes me mad because innocent people are getting stuck with a bill they should not be,” Frobose continued. Nondistrict east growers reap “private profits” from a public resource – groundwater – he said, then “expect everyone else to pay for this. It’s unacceptable.”
Board Director Chris Ott and Frobose acknowledged the tight deadline and said they didn’t want to hamstring the other agencies by introducing amendments to the plans. They joined in a unanimous 4-0 vote – Board Director Janice Keating was absent – to approve the plans, though Frobose made clear they can be changed with future votes.
The OID board also approved the plans Jan. 13, as did the Waterford City Council Jan. 15. The Oakdale City Council is scheduled to vote Jan. 20 followed by votes on Jan. 27 by the Riverbank City Council and the county Board of Supervisors.
The groundwater and well mitigation plans will be discussed at a 1:30 p.m. Jan. 28 meeting of the Stanislaus and Tuolumne Rivers Groundwater Basin Association, in the OID boardroom. See MID and OID websites for remote viewing information.
Garth Stapley is the accountability reporter for The Modesto Focus, a project of the nonprofit Central Valley Journalism Collaborative. Contact him at garth@cvlocaljournalism.org.