We feel a little better about the blacked-out Lake Oroville spillway reports after learning an important bit of new news Monday: Somebody outside the state government, a person we trust, is looking closely at the documents to see what is censored.

On Friday we wrote an editorial that called for better checks and balances.

The state Department of Water Resources, which operates the hydroelectric project, has been criticized by this newspaper, politicians and many in the community for not releasing entire reports from an independent board of consultants that is evaluating design plans for rebuilding the damaged spillways. Instead, parts are redacted, including some of the consultants’ recommendations.

The DWR says anything redacted is because of homeland security concerns. The agency doesn’t want to point out vulnerabilities to terrorists. But we’ve seen government agencies withhold information — or erase citizens’ civil liberties — while hiding behind that homeland security shield.

Our area’s history of distrust of DWR over Lake Oroville doesn’t help matters.

Some have speculated that DWR is trying to hide organizational mistakes.

In Friday’s editorial we wrote: “We’d like to see a third party have an opportunity to look at the uncensored reports to see if the redactions are warranted, even if that person could not reveal what’s in the report.” We mentioned Butte County Counsel Bruce Alpert or Assemblyman James Gallagher as people we would trust if they said the redactions were legitimate.

We learned Monday that a reliable third party is indeed seeing the uncensored reports — Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea.

Honea said he sees the reports with proposed redactions before they are released to the public. He said he questions whether certain parts need to be redacted.

Honea has earned a reputation as a caring, honest public servant during these four months. We’ve known him for years and, long before this crisis, have known him to be forthright, sincere and professional, even in matters that he knew would reflect badly on people in his department.

We have no doubt he’d ask critical questions about redactions and wouldn’t rubber-stamp the state agency’s black-line recommendations. He said DWR has been helpful in clarifying to him why certain things are withheld, and that DWR has been more discerning about what they redact so fewer parts are censored.

Honea was chosen because, due to his job, he can be trusted with and has the right clearances to receive sensitive information.

Most important from our point of view, though, is that we know Honea has the interests of Butte County citizens foremost in his mind, not the reputation of DWR. Short of seeing the full reports ourselves, this is the next best thing.