Regarding Gerald Meral's guest opinion of last Sunday, Sept. 8: Boy, I've heard some whoppers before, but Deputy Secretary Meral's propaganda about benefits to Northern California region and endangered species takes the cake. He apparently hasn't read all of the 40,000 pages of the BDCP Plan and EIR/EIS, or he is conveniently omitting mention of some very troubling "Inconvenient Truths" including Table 9-7 "Summary of Change in Take Relative to the BDCP Proposed Action," page 9-20, Plan Chapter 9, which shows that take of covered species, both wildlife and fish, increases under the BDP Proposed Action (Alternative 4) as well as all of the BDCP alternatives that include new conveyance tunnels/canal in North Delta.