By Conner Everts, Southern California Watershed Alliance, and Adam Scow, Food & Water Watch
Last week Food & Water Watch, Southern California Watershed Alliance, and Green LA Coalition challenged the Metropolitan Water District (MWD) for its opposition to an independent cost-benefit analysis of the proposed multibillion-dollar Peripheral Canal or Tunnel project.
Who would get the water and who would pay the bill, which is now estimated to be $20 billion to upwards of $50 billion? MWD opposes an independent cost-benefit analysis. But it’s MWD customers and other water district ratepayers in the southland who would pay the bill.
AB 2421 would require such an analysis. The bill’s fate now rests with Assembly member Felipe Fuentes and Speaker John Perez, who will largely determine whether it advances or dies by May 25 in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.