EDITOR,

Protect Our Water and Environmental Rights is a bipartisan association of farmers, businesses, environmentalists and other people concerned about efficient water use in this state that strongly supports Assemblyman Bill Berryhill’s Assembly Bill 2421 to make the state tell the truth about the cost of this incredibly opaque project to transfer even more water out of the Delta to Southern California.

If you aren’t sure what project we’re talking about, neither is anyone but a few men behind the green curtain. They don’t want any questions. They just want us to all get along and pay the bills, no excuses. No, thanks. You don’t realize it up there, but Southern California has been a leader in excuses for water waste, while claiming they’re doing a great job of water conservation and reuse.

We’ve quantified that the Southern California urban water agencies could conserve and reuse as much water as they plan on taking from the Delta via this new boondoggle of a project, while achieving the security they say they’re seeking. Their recent voluntary 20 percent reduction in water use shows they can. Because conservation and reuse have proven to be so very cost effective, we’re certain that conservation and reuse would cost a fraction of whatever is ultimately proposed.

All the voters and water ratepayers of this state deserve to know the hard facts about the costs for whatever water conveyance system is chosen behind that green curtain. It’s time to rally behind AB 2421 like there’s no tomorrow, because without enough water in the Delta to keep everything going, your economy will be gone.

• Editor’s Note: Assembly Bill 2421 would require the state’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office to conduct an economic feasibility study before the Legislature could enact a peripheral canal or tunnel to ship water around the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.