Oroville Dam Repair Costs Still a Confusing Secret

The Mercury News editorial board raises a concern about transparency on the issue of how much it will cost to repair the damage at Oroville Dam by winter flooding.

It is a simple question really: How much is the massive repair project below Lake Oroville costing each day. Simple or not, it has been appallingly difficult to get it answered.

The editorial board claims its newspaper has been asking "for weeks" of the Department of Water Resources about cost estimates. "The answers are never immediate and when they have come they are often incomplete or clearly wrong," according to the editorial.

The editorial includes more detail about what's known so far about the costs of the project, and the agencies and levels of government that will have a political process to sort out the expenses for repair work. "That’s why we deserve transparency and honesty, not gymnastic efforts to avoid delivering the bad news," concludes the editorial.