Safety plans should be made public

The state agency in charge of Lake Oroville prefers secrecy and Gov. Jerry Brown has become its enabler. Now Democrats in the Legislature are on board, voting to keep the public in the dark.

We had hoped elected officials would have kept endangered citizens in mind. Sadly, we were wrong.

There’s no good reason for what the Assembly approved last week on a straight partyline vote. Senate Bill 92 requires that emergency response plans be developed but kept secret.

The bill is an insult. Emergency safety plans are made for the public, but the public can’t see them? The state says the plans are being kept secret because terrorists could use the plans to do harm. It defies common sense.

Assemblyman James Gallagher, R-Yuba City, the only person in the 120-member Legislature who had to be evacuated from his home during the Oroville spillway crisis, chastised the deaf ears in the Assembly.

He reminded legislators about the evacuation of 188,000 people downstream of the dam four months ago. He called it a “debacle in terms of how emergency action plans were carried out.” Gallagher noted that while state officials dithered, Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea stepped in and made the decision to evacuate.

The incident proved emergency action plans need to be updated. SB 92 could help, if the public was clued in about it.

“So we’re going to improve them but we’re just not going to let you see them. And again they’re going to say, ‘Maybe somebody might be able to use this to commit a terrorist act,’ ” Gallagher said. “I can tell you my constituents are more scared of the people operating and maintaining that dam than they are of terrorists right now.”

Gallagher went on to criticize fellow legislators for not funding repairs to levees through the general fund. The state seems willing to wait for a disaster to happen, then pay the bill, he said. Gallagher urged a vote against the bill because it only perpetuated the paternalistic culture of secrecy at DWR that has been at the heart of the distrust and anxiety expressed by his constituents.

Gallagher was right on both counts.

After he spoke, Gallagher’s Assembly colleagues quickly proved him right by passing the bill 55-23, with only Democrats in favor.

So the bottom line is that the people who brought you the flying concrete and mass evacuations at Lake Oroville say they will have a swell new emergency public safety plan and that it is a lot better. However, even though you are paying for it, you can’t see it. Too sensitive, you understand. You will just have to trust us.

To which we say no thanks. Nearly 200,000 people have seen first-hand where trusting DWR leads. These plans should be open.

“I can tell you my constituents are more scared of the people operating and maintaining that dam than they are of terrorists right now.” — James Gallagher, assemblyman, R-Yuba City