If penicillin were invented today, would your HMO balk at letting your doctor prescribe it for a “routine” infection?

Can’t you just hear their response? “Soap and hot water are the standard of care. Penicillin may only be used when reviewed by your provider group and deemed medically necessary.”

Oh, you SO know they would.

Why am I down on HMOs? Because I just had to go to the mat with mine to get an OK for a digital mammogram screening instead of the traditional film screening.

I won, but only after two days of pushy and demanding phone calls to my medical group.

I’m not writing to crow about my success but to lament that I had to go through this exercise at all. I’m also wondering how many women, who are far less belligerent than yours truly, just take what they’re given by their medical groups and don’t know they can and should demand more?

Of the four medical groups I talked with, only Golden Empire Managed Care automatically allows digital mammograms without requiring any special approval and has done so for the last few years.

Both Bakersfield Family Medical Center (my group) and Kaiser Permanente require patients to have their doctor request a digital mammogram based on “medical necessity” and that request is then run through the group’s review process and may or may not be approved, according to customer service reps.

Even at Kern Family Health Care, a private group that administers Medi-Cal locally, patients have to go through those extra, and I say unneeded, hoops, according to customer service. Not only that, customer service told me they only allow screenings once every two years. That’s in spite of the fact that Medi-Cal automatically covers both digital and film mammography annually.

Hmmm. Maybe that’s how Kern Family stocked up that $70 million reserve fund and were able to buy that fancy building on Stockdale Highway that County Supervisors recently grilled them over.

And, ironically, “Cancer Detection Programs: Every Woman Counts,” a state program for women who don’t qualify for Med-Cal and don’t have private insurance, does not pay for digital screenings. What’s in a name, right?

Now, I’m not saying digital mammograms are on par with the discovery of penicillin in the medical world, but they can be a better tool for finding problems earlier.

Studies have clearly shown that digital screenings are better for women under 50 and those with dense breast tissue.

Some radiologists still prefer the traditional method and oncologists I spoke with said the old way is still very effective. In fact, one doctor said the quality of the radiologist is more important than either manner of screening. And, of course, neither method will help if you don’t get it done every year or at the very least every other year starting at age 40.  So GET IT DONE!

All things being equal, however, the cancer doctors told me digital mammograms are more helpful in understanding what is happening inside the breast tissue as they are clearer and the picture can be rotated to give the doctor different viewpoints.

That means the doctor has a better chance of detecting cancer early, hence a better shot at saving that woman’s life.

I know getting emotional with an HMO is an act of futility. These are businesses, after all, and treatment costs are a bottom-line issue.

Allowing digital screenings, however, makes sense even on a purely financial level.

The cost difference for digital is negligible — about $70 more for cash customers and those covered by Blue Cross, $56 more for Medi-Cal patients and about $53 more for Medicare patients, according to Truxtun Radiology.

But the cost difference for treating cancers at their early versus advance stages is astronomical.

That alone should spur managed care groups to go digital.

When I asked why I was being allowed to have a digital mammogram without my doctor requesting approval based on “medical necessity,” I was told BFMC does allow them for squeaky wheels like me. (Take note, ladies!)

And, because of other similarly “adamant” patients, BFMC planned to gather its policymakers last week to discuss and possibly re-evaluate its rules on digital screening. Kaiser also told me they were sorting out their policies and I heard Kern Family is considering a change to automatically allow digital screenings.

They should all know by now where I stand.

Lois Henry’s column appears Wednesdays and Sundays. E-mail her at lhenry@bakersfield.com or call her at 395-7373.

Remember a couple weeks ago I wrote about how lame I thought it was that the Bush administration refused to allow California to require more stringent emissions controls on cars sold here?

And I mentioned that the EPA chief, Stephen Johnson, even went against his agency's own recommendations to make the ruling against California. (The EPA has to grant waivers when states go above the federal requirements, which California had always received before.)

Well, read this!

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-b...

It's even worse than I thought.

I’ve been hearing rumblings for some time about turf battles between the Kern County Fire and Sheriff’s departments over search and rescue.
 

Huh?

Search and rescue? Hey! That could be me someday. I don’t want the people who are supposed to be haulin’ my behind out of the river or off a mountain squabbling over who’s in charge.

When I asked Chief Dennis Thompson and Sheriff Donny Youngblood, they acknowledged it was true.

But, they both said, they’re working on it. In fact, they’re going to put together a group of their top people to focus on communications between the agencies.

I might find that reassuring — except they already have an agreement about river rescues that spells out exactly who gets called first and who’s in charge.

Still, problems have persisted.

At a drowning in Lake Isabella last summer where the victim had been under water for more than half an hour, the fire department helicopter suddenly arrived. No one from the Sheriff’s department knew it was coming. On occasion, both the Sheriff’s helicopter and Fire’s have been called and neither knew the other was coming. Danger! Danger!

During a river rescue where Fire’s helicopter was called, it hovered unused for more than five hours, even having to refuel once, awaiting instructions while a man clung to a rock in the water. Finally, as the sun was setting, Search and Rescue asked Fire to hoist the victim to safety.

If they don’t figure this out and soon, someone’s going to get hurt, maybe even killed.

Ninety-nine percent of the time, the departments work great together. But not always on search and rescue. (Chief Thompson was quick to point out two searches over President’s Day weekend in which the agencies worked extremely well together, saving a stranded hiker and off-roader in two separate incidents. “That’s the way we want it to work every time,” Thompson said.)

Both Thompson and Youngblood stressed that they have a very strong working relationship.

In general, however, other fire personnel feel the sheriff’s department leaves them out of the loop and needlessly endangers the public by not enlisting their help and  equipment. And they worry the sheriff is angling to take over air operations for the entire county.

Sheriff’s staffers feel Fire is butting in when help isn’t needed, creating confusion and needlessly increasing costs. And they fear Fire is on a quest to take over search and rescue.

Friction over search and rescue isn’t new, but tensions seemed to escalate after the fire department got a new helicopter with hoist and night vision capabilities.

Why not use that resource for river rescues, missing ATV riders or downed planes, many in Fire ask? Makes sense to me. Believe me, if I were in any of those situations I’d want everyone called out — Fire, Sheriff’s, heck, get Mayor Hall out of bed and slap some binoculars in his hands.

Sheriff Youngblood had a slightly more restrained approach.

You can’t just stampede out the door with good intentions.

The Sheriff’s department, he said, needs to plan and coordinate the effort so everyone knows his job, for the safety of the missing person and rescuers. Youngblood has more than 200 volunteers who train in everything from mine rescues to river rescues. His officers work with the Civil Air Patrol, which has night vision capabilities of its own and come July, the department will have its own helicopter with the same bells and whistles as the Fire department.

And, he added, the sheriff’s department does call in Fire — when needed.

“If they can rescue someone before we get there, great,” Youngblood said. “It’s about saving lives.”

Once the sheriff’s department is on scene, though, they are in charge; their responsibility is set by Kern County charter.

Fire staffers I talked to were totally cool with the sheriff being in charge, that’s not their beef. They want to be called more often.

OK, everyone sounds like they want to play nice. So what’s the problem?

I hate to think it’s the usual “Ps” — power, politics and posturing. But people close to the situation tell me those, in fact, are the true culprits.

While Youngblood said he absolutely has no interest in taking over all air operations for Kern (as is the situation in Ventura County), others pointed out the new Huey ordered by the Sheriff will have firefighting capabilities and Youngblood offered to let Fire use it.

That may sound like an olive branch, but it is also being seen by some as a step on the road to consolidation of air operations, which I think would be a bad idea.

I talked with folks in Ventura County where the Sheriff is in charge of air ops and Fire is clearly second on the priority list for helicopter use. We must keep operations separate here so neither agency has to wait for permission to use a helicopter when there’s an emergency.

And while Chief Thompson told me search and rescue absolutely is the purview of the sheriff, people in his own department insist Kern would do better to model Los Angeles or other counties where Fire is a partner in search and rescue.

The two supervisors whose districts are most likely to need search and rescue, Jon McQuiston and Don Maben, both told me they see no reason to change the status quo: Sheriff keeps search and rescue and both agencies keep control over their own aircraft.

I totally agree when it comes to aircraft, though I’m not sure about search and rescue.

That’s something for those with far more expertise to sort out.

But I know this for sure: Someone will get hurt if Fire and the sheriff’s department don’t work this out, and soon.

Lois Henry’s column appears Wednesdays and Sundays. E-mail her at lhenry@bakersfield.com or call her at 395-7373.

Bakersfield College has a plan in case a wacko opens fire on campus as tragically happened  — again — at another university, this time Northern Illinois.

At the heart of BC’s plan is this — “Call 9-1-1.”

After that, it instructs, call the campus Public Safety department. “An Officer will respond to your location and render assistance while waiting for police to arrive,” the plan’s section on “Crime In Progress” advises.

I’m not sure how much assistance they would be without a gun.

BC Public Safety officers have batons and pepper spray, but no guns.

Yes, BC’s plan lays out incident command and perimeter control and sets protocols for triage and all the other things no one gave a moment’s thought to years ago.

But by not arming their officers, they are ignoring the reality of society today.

Even if the campus never has to deal with a rampaging shooter (and here’s knocking wood it never happens) other incidents can and do happen with enough frequency that I think the officers should be trained and armed.

At any one time, there are 5,000 to 7,000 students on campus. And that’s just students. Anyone can come or go any time.

A few years ago, a man robbed some students in the parking lot claiming he had a gun in his pocket, BC’s Public Safety Chief Mark Graf told me. A BC officer cornered the bad guy nearby but when the suspect reached in his pocket, the BC officer had to jump back in his patrol car and scram out of there.

Interestingly, if that robber had done his deed in a Kern High School District parking lot and a KHSD officer had him trapped, that KHSD officer could have drawn his gun, told the perp to put up his hands and hauled him away then and there. That’s because KHSD officers are armed, as are California State University, Bakersfield officers.

The issue of arming BC’s safety officers has come up before.

The last time it was discussed at length, and it was lengthy, was back in 1998 to 2000.

That time, it came up after an officer was attacked while on the night patrol. Kern Community College District trustees debated for more than two years before deciding to keep the status quo.

“It was determined back then, to keep the security department operating as a security department and working collaboratively with BPD,” said now Chancellor, then BC President Sandra Serrano. A task force decided BPD’s protection was more than adequate, she said. It was also decided back then that college officers should have access to police radio channels.

That was nearly eight years ago.

But BC’s force remained virtually incommunicado. Their radio system is a closed loop, meaning they can only talk to each other. Only now are they working to get access to BPD’s channels so BC officers can directly alert police if they need help.

Yikes! I’d hate to see how long it takes for something that’s not a priority.

Both Chancellor Serrano and BC President Bill Andrews noted BC is a very safe campus and has been for its long history.

That’s true. And even Graf, who supports arming his officers, said campus crime stats don’t make a case for adding guns to officers’ utility belts.

According to the latest numbers which looked at 2004, 2005 and 2006, BC is a veritable paradise. No murders, no rapes, no arsons, three robberies, two assaults, eight burglaries and 23 car thefts.

“Statistically, it’s not there,” Graf consented. “But common-sense wise, we should be armed.”

I agree.

When you stick someone in a uniform and make them responsible for protecting hundreds of people, they should have the tools to do that job. Otherwise, they’re ineffectual at best and targets at worst.

In fact, Graf has had the light bars taken off the patrol cars and changed the uniforms from navy blue to black pants and gray shirts, even polos in the summer that say Public Safety on the back and Bakersfield College on the front.

“We’re trying to take down the exposure so someone doesn’t mistake our unarmed officers for police officers.”

The flip side, of course, is if they don’t look like they wield any authority, bad guys might act accordingly.

Graf and other officers I spoke with at BC talked a lot about luck. We’ve been lucky so far that something really bad hasn’t happened.

Luck is good. Being prepared is better.

Lois Henry’s column appears Wednesdays and Sundays. E-mail her at lhenry@bakersfield.com or call her at 395-7373.

larger view

Remember this name — Conor O’Sullivan.

He’s a 16-year-old Stockdale High junior right now but I have no doubt we’ll be hearing from him in the future.

I recently met him after he told me he’s taken on the Kern River as a pet cause and he’s determined to have an effect.

After reading my column outlining how there may be a chance to get water in the river, Conor did more than just send his comments to the State Water Resources Control Board (which you also can do, more on that later).

He printed 180 postcards with a picture of a beautiful, full Kern River on the front, addressed them to the state board and added a list of reasons why the board should allow water back in the now dry river bed. He’s been taking the stamped postcards to Riverwalk Park on Stockdale Highway after school and on weekends asking people to sign.

So far, he’s gathered 50 signatures and already sent that batch of cards up to Sacramento. His goal is to get the rest of the cards signed and, if he can get some donations, print up even more. The cards cost about .50 each including postage, so he’s already made a substantial investment himself.

“I just thought it might finally be possible,” he said of the prospect of an actual river.

I wrote last month about how a lawsuit between two local water districts resulted in one of the districts forfeiting some of its rights to Kern River water. The City of Bakersfield petitioned the state to decide there is water available and then give it to the city, which it promised to run down the river bed.

Imagine! A river in our river bed!!

Several powerful, local water districts, however, have also asked for the water. They want it for irrigation, to bank or possibly for municipal use.

My take is that ag has enough Kern River water. It’s time for the public to reclaim at least some of the river and bring life back to the brown beach cutting through the center of town.

A number of people agreed with me. Actually, 185 people, who sent comments to the board pleading to have our river back. (Really, there were 187 comments, but two were against.)

Conor wants to keep up that momentum and multiply it.

I was told the public comment period ended Jan. 31. But when I contacted the state about Conor’s mission, they told me Jan. 31 wasn’t a “hard” deadline and they’re still accepting public comments. Great! Because Conor is one determined kid.

Not only that, the water districts are not giving up.

They got together and sent the state a 16-page letter using just about every case except Brown v. Board of Education to bolster their side, which is to keep an iron grip on the status quo. They argue:

A) The board shouldn’t hold a hearing on the river and should ignore all applications for the water, including theirs.

B) If the board does hold a hearing, it can’t find there is any available water because the river is already oversubscribed.

C) If they do find there’s water available, they can’t consider environmental benefits as a factor in deciding who should get it because the environment wasn’t considered back in 1964 when the board decided the river was fully divvied up.

D) If they do decide there’s water available and do award it to one of the applicants, those rights would be junior to all other rights on the river, meaning the new entity would only get water after everyone ahead of it got their full allotment.

The letter is signed by some of the most powerful water agencies in Kern County (and the state) —  the Kern County Water Agency, Kern Water Bank Authority, North Kern Water Storage District, Buena Vista Water Storage District and the City of Shafter.

I wonder if David felt this puny in front of his Goliath?

The water districts, though, never mention something called the public trust doctrine, which holds that rivers belong to all the people. I think it is worth mentioning, as well as the fact that the state board has a duty to protect that right.

But it’s up to us, the public, to assert that right.

Conor is doing his part. And despite the obstacles, he remains undaunted.

He’ll be at Riverwalk Park again Sunday from 2 to 4 p.m. gathering signatures.

“I taught my dog how to swim in the river,” he said. Besides, his dad recently won an inflatable boat in a raffle.

Here’s hoping Conor and his dog will someday spend their lazy summer afternoons floating down the lower Kern, watching the banks slide silently by.

Since we have more time to send comments, please do!
Here’s the info you need:
Kathryn M. Gaffney, P.E.
State Water Resources Control Board
Division of Water Rights
1001 I Street, 14th Floor
P.O. Box 2000
Sacramento, CA 95812-2000
Or e-mail her at: kgaffney@waterboards.ca.gov

High points to hit:
• Urge the SWRCB to assume jurisdiction over the forfeited Kern River water and find that the river is not fully appropriated.
Then state your support for Bakersfield's application for the water as it would:
• Increase flow in the natural Kern River channel benefitting residents, the environment and economy.
• Ensure Kern River water stays in Kern County.
• Protect and maintain the quality of our drinking water.
• Preserve river habitat.
• Enhance recreational opportunities.
• Return at least a portion of the river to public use.

Sign Conor's cards!

Conor O’Sullivan will be gathering signatures in support of allowing water back in the Kern River at Riverwalk Park (Stockdale Highway and Buena Vista Road) Sunday from 2 to 4 p.m.
He’s also accepting donations to make more cards or give to a charitable organization in support of the river.

Lois Henry’s column appears Wednesdays and Sundays. E-mail her at lhenry@bakersfield.com or call her at 395-7373.

At first, I thought a new rule by the Bush administration to no longer reimburse schools for the administrative work they do arranging services for special ed, disabled and poor students was just short-sighted.

After learning more, however, I’ve added sneaky and mean-spirited to my assessment.

The expected savings from this new rule will be about $635 million a year. Is that even considered real money in Washington, D.C.?

In Kern County the rule will mean a loss of between $6 million and $8 million a year from several districts, including $1.3 million a year from Kern High School District alone.

Around here, that’s real money. It could pay for a school nurse, maybe a specialist for hearing impaired students, supplies or seed money for grants.

Without that federal reimbursement money, school employees will still do the work, the district just won’t get any cash for it.

“In tough budget times like these, it’s a hard bitter pill to swallow,” Steve Moyer, manager of special education at KHSD, said of the new rule.

Here’s how the program worked:

School staff regularly help parents get services through Medicaid — Medi-Cal in California — for poor, disabled or special ed kids. That means teachers, nurses and counselors spend some of their time filling out forms and making appointments.

Districts track how much time employees spend on those administrative tasks and bill the feds, via the state, for half the cost. The districts foot the bill for the other half.

Schools are usually the first agencies to see students in need, so they’ve been the most cost-effective way to link children to services.

And, school districts are mandated to provide education to all students. If some need special services to get that education, districts are on the hook for it.

The program was working and it was needed. Clearly, it had to go! (Shortsighted.)

Not only that, it was done with the swipe of a bureaucrat’s pen.

This rule was one of several instituted by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) that will cut administrative reimbursements to hospitals, community health centers and more, shifting an estimated $11 billion in costs over the next five years to states.

Since it was all done through “regulatory” changes, Congress had no say. (Sneaky.)

Students eligible for these services are the poorest of the poor. If they can’t get help through schools, they likely won’t get it at all.

So, this pittance of a savings to the feds will leave truly needy kids behind or schools will have to spend more of their dwindling resources to help them, or both. (Mean-spirited.)

As a purely political side observation — which I’ve made before about this administration — this new rule also steps squarely on the toes of state’s rights, something that used to be a big no-no in conservatives’ playbooks.

California had worked out agreements so school districts could sign up eligible children.

But now Big Brother says we can’t do things our way.

The new rule will go into effect this June unless Congress stops it.

There is a bill, HR4355, that will put a moratorium on the rule. It is awaiting a hearing in the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Cong. Jim Costa, D-Fresno, said he intends to become a co-sponsor of this bill.

He also lamented the administration’s attempt to further curtail funding that goes to special education, which the federal government has never fully funded as promised after making it a mandate for all school districts more than 20 years ago.

Cong. Kevin McCarthy, R-Bakersfield, likewise will co-sponsor the bill.

“I support the idea of a moratorim so we can look at this issue and solve it,” he told me.

Perhaps if the federal government lived up to its promise from the 1970s and funded special education programs the promised amount, we wouldn’t have to deal with this type of back-door budgeting.
 

Tell your Congressmen how you feel
Urge them to vote for HR4355, the moratorium on CMS-2287 (the rule that will cease Medicaid reimbursements to schools for administrative work to help poor, disabled and special ed students get services)

Rep. Jim Costa, D-Fresno
Drop him an email by going to his webpage at http://www.costa.house.gov/ and clicking on “contact” in the upper right hand corner.
Or phone him at his Washington, D.C. office at (202) 225-3341

Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Bakersfield
Go to his webpage at http://kevinmccarthy.house.... and click on “contact” in the upper right corner to send him an e-mail.
Or call him in D.C. at (202) 225-2915 or his Bakersfield office at (661) 327-3611.
 

Lois Henry’s column appears Wednesdays and Sundays. E-mail her at lhenry@bakersfield.com or call her at 395-7373.

I asked the State Water Resources Control Board to send me the public comments received on the Kern River issue.

There were about 185-187 letters and emails. All but two asked that the board find the river not fully appropriated and then give the unappropriated water to the City of Bakersfield to run down the river channel.

One letter from a Santa Clarita group asked to be kept apprised of any future actions as "several entities have proposed trnasferring, or are currently transferring water to the Santa Clarita area in Northern Los Angeles County from the Kern River."

Really???? I thought all the Kern River water was kept IN COUNTY. Looking into that now.

Of the two letters against giving the water to the City, one said it was wasteful and should be used for Ag and the other alleged the City is fomenting a conspiracy with The Bakersfield Californian for questionable intent.

The questionable intent, he contends, is housing.

That particular writer also talks about information he got from an "old ditchrider in Pumpkin Center." Hmmmm, sounds familiar.

Oh, and he claims The Californian is not allowing debate on this subject.

Please! DEBATE all you'd like!

The Kern County Board of Supervisors came close — so close — to hitting it out of the park on Tuesday when deciding whether or not to come down hard on Community Recycling for illegally stockpiling construction waste on land near Lamont.

The best they did, though, was a base hit by reducing the $60,000 fine to $25,000 and ordering Community Recycling to pay staff costs up to $10,000 for the time it’s taken to process this case, plus having them pay for a study to be done by the county’s Environmental Health department assessing the hazards of the construction debris.

That’s better than the repeated strike-outs we used to get from Supervisors who routinely let illegal dumpers off scot-free.

But after decades of serving as the state’s de facto dumping ground for everything from toxic oil sludge to trash-laced “greenwaste” and watching our own elected officials turn a blind eye, I wanted more.

I wanted Community Recycling to feel a little of our pain, right in the wallet — where no business ever forgets it.

The $60,000 fine was fair and I wish supervisors had stuck by it.

Two years ago, Supervisors gave the city of Oxnard just about three months to clean up 90,000 tons of toxic refinery ash illegally dumped on land near Wasco or suffer a $3,000-a-day fine plus $25,000 — a possible total of $252,000 if the piles weren’t moved. Guess what? They cleaned it up.

Arguably, Community Recycling isn’t the worst offender we’ve ever had. They aren’t fly-by-night, having operated here for more than a decade. They haven’t abandoned their mess as many have. And they cleaned up everything the county told them to. That is until it came to something that would have cost them nearly $2 million to dispose of: huge piles of drywall they had no right under their conditional use permit to accept in the first place.

That’s when they balked and rolled the dice, hoping they could get a better deal out of the county with a little persuasion.

And persuade they did.

I’ve heard the fifth floor of the county building (where all the supervisors and their staff work) was crawling with people lobbying on behalf of Community Recycling in the week before Tuesday’s vote. Apparently, someone was also spreading bad info that the supes were on the verge of shutting down Community Recycling.
Absolutely not true. But the rumor had its likely desired effect.

Letters came in from big grocery chains, which send produce waste to Community Recycling, pleading with supervisors not to shut the site down. Workers showed up at Tuesday’s meeting frightened they’d be out of jobs.

Once the ground was softened, so to speak, Community Recycling offered what they said was the most beneficial way to get rid of the wall board. Instead of needlessly clogging the landfill, they would separate the gypsum from the paper, grind it up and plow it into farmland as a soil amendment. Supervisors agreed, as long as the environmental study didn’t find any hazards, and everyone walked away happy.

Except me.

Hey, I’m cool with recycling the stuff, if possible.

What irks me is how Supervisors went along with Community Recycling’s justification for what is clearly a pattern of behavior of pushing the rules.

First, Community Recycling was caught in June plowing “greenwaste” into farmland that was so loaded with trash the top five inches of soil was practically paved with glass, metal, plastics and other junk. They were ordered to clean that up and they are.

They were also caught taking in concrete, not allowed by their permit, so they quickly ground it up, spread it on dirt roads and called it dust control.

Next, the wall board — 48,000 tons of it. They had apparently been accumulating it for a while and only after they were caught did they come up with this plan for a “beneficial” use.

How would that work in any other situation?

A thief breaks into your house, steals your piano and after he gets caught he says he shouldn’t have to pay the consequences because, hey, he can give your kid lessons!

If Community Recycling illegally stockpiled the wallboard and didn’t clean it up as Supervisors ordered, they shouldn’t get a break for coming up with a way to get rid of it now.

That was the theme in Kern County for years. Businesses illegally dumping vile things on our wide open spaces would get caught and only then would they seek, and often receive, a permit — without incurring any penalties, including having to clean up their original mess.

Supervisors approved an ordinance several years ago to try and correct that after-the-fact cycle. Now, there’s a hearing process that includes clean-up measures. And, I’m told, we’re having more hearings every year as county staff keeps after illegal dumpers.

More than one county official told me the $25,000 fine Supervisors hit Community Recycling with is a major step forward. A few years ago it “never would have been conceived of,” one official said.

True. I suppose I should give a little credit for that.

But I do so grudgingly and will be watching with a more cynical eye when the Board handles future illegal dumping cases.

Lois Henry’s column appears Wednesdays and Sundays. E-mail her at lhenry@bakersfield.com or call her at 395-7373.

Everybody’s doing it.

From Mendocino to Long Beach and even over in Tucson. They’re all doing it.

Not us.

We don’t conserve water in Bakersfield.

We follow state laws that mandate all new housing have water-efficient facilities and we’re working on getting new and old houses metered over the next few years, also per state mandate.

But other than that, nothing.

You want to water your lawn till it floats? Go right ahead. Hose off your aircraft-carrier-sized driveway in the middle of summer? Please, feel free.

Meanwhile, people in Long Beach have to get the all-clear before they sprinkle and folks in Arizona are being paid $2 a square foot to rip out their lawns.

A recent transplant to Bakersfield from the Central Coast told me she’d have been shot if she wasted water over there like we do here — leaky sprinklers, oversoaking yards, hoses left running. Here, she said, it’s hard to even find information about conservation.

I’ve asked Bakersfield’s Water Resources Manager Florn Core about this numerous times and he always tells me the same thing.

Despite being in a desert (rainfall of 6 inches or less per year), Bakersfield is water rich.

He encourages conservation, but rationing when it’s unnecessary just irritates people.

And it’s not necessary, he insisted.

The city of Bakersfield owns rights to about a quarter of the Kern River’s annual flows.

About a third of that water is tied up in ag contracts coming due in 2012, and Core expects most of that water ultimately will go to the taps of our growing population.

We also sit atop a vast aquifer, he said, and we bank water for dry years. About 75 percent of the city uses that groundwater.

With those two sources and some surface water supplied by the state aqueduct, Bakersfield is virtually awash in water.

“Even with our growth,” Core said, “we will not have to ration.”
I

personally haven’t measured how much water we have and how much we consume, so I have no reason to doubt Core’s assessment.

Still, I believe we need much stronger conservation measures.

Given our growth and the fact that we’re not getting any “new” water, it stands to reason that it would be better for us over the long haul to tighten up our use.

And I bet anything we’re going to see more water mandates from the state, so why not be prepared?

Kern’s Planning Director Ted James agreed that more state regulation is likely in our future. So the county is leaning on developers to find greater water efficiencies.

I’d like to see the city and county do more.

They should combine forces on an ad campaign on how to curb waste — don’t leave the tap running while you brush your teeth; only run appliances with full loads; limit flushing; wash your car using a bucket instead of a running hose; time sprinklers for cooler parts of the day; etc.

And I know folks love their lawns, but we should give incentives for developers (and regular people) to landscape using drought-resistant plants instead of lawns, or at least reduce lawn sizes. As for businesses and shopping malls, they shouldn’t have any grass at all. Why do they need a strip of lawn along the edges? It’s just wasteful without any real use.

We also once had a program to help people retrofit their houses with low-flow toilets and more water efficient washing machines. We should start that up again.

Local farmers are already on board, leading the nation in water-wise irrigation methods.

Those folks are stingy with every drop.

That mindset should permeate our entire culture. It’s the right thing to do.

During the 1987-1992 drought, Bakersfield didn’t institute rationing as did most other California cities. Instead, Core said, with an ad campaign and public cooperation, water consumption went down by 10 percent for per-person consumption in 1990 and 1991.

So people will respond when they know it’s important. It’s up to local government to keep it top of mind.

It may seem weird to talk about water conservation when every weekend has brought a storm recently. But we know as surely as July will bring triple digits that at some point we will have another dry year, another drought.

We may be “water rich,” but that doesn’t mean we should squander what we have.

How much water do you use?

The average person uses about 200 gallons of water per day. Visit http://www.h2oconserve.org to find out your own personal water use.

Lois Henry’s column appears Wednesdays and Sundays. E-mail her at lhenry@bakersfield.com or call her at 395-7373.

It may be the 21st century, but you still can’t build roads without a handshake.

Money and memos and timetables are great.

But if the people at the table aren’t talking, things won’t get done.

If some people aren’t even coming to the table, well, you’re gridlocked.

That’s where we were with the Thomas Roads Improvement Program (TRIP) until Wednesday night.

The City Council wisely adopted a charter governing one major piece of the TRIP plan, which will allow Caltrans to take over as lead agency on the Highway 58 alignment.

Because of the way the Thomas money — so named because former Rep. Bill Thomas got the money approved as one of his final acts in office — was structured, the city had control over all $630 million and initially was the lead agency on all pieces of TRIP.

The project touched a number of agencies, including Caltrans, Kern County, the Kern Council of Governments and even the feds.

That required building relationships, working together, gaining consensus.

For three years, that didn’t happen and nothing moved forward. (We could talk about the personalities at fault, but I think that’s been covered, so we’ll just move on.)

Which is why Wednesday’s vote gives me some hope.

Caltrans has the know-how and experience to handle right-of-way acquisition, environmental reports and  working through the web of federal and state regulations that entangle every freeway project. They’re the right agency in charge of the right piece of TRIP.

It will still involve working with the city, county and Kern COG, but Caltrans should be used to that.

That’s how they built the freeways in Fresno, according to Barbara Goodwin, executive director of the Council of Fresno County Governments.

Fresno, of course, got its funding (about $700 million) over 20 years via the 1/2-cent sales tax approved by voters in 1986 (hint hint!!!).

Spending that money, prioritizing the projects and picking the lead agencies was, and is, decided after much consensus building. There is no single lead agency for all projects.

“Relationships are the key,” Goodwin said. “All parties of interest have to come to the table and you have to work through the process to move forward.

“It’s hard work.”

It has paid off.

Getting through Fresno is a breeze. OK, it’s not perfect. At rush hour, some areas are pretty snarled and they’re trying to figure out how to tweak the system.

Still, it’s nothing compared to trying to get through Bakersfield east to west, no matter what time you’re driving.

Fresno folks liked what their money bought them so much, they approved a 20-year extension of the 1/2-cent sales tax in 2006 with 78 percent of the vote, according to Goodwin.

That was the same year, by the by, that Kern County voters rejected a similar tax here for the third time. Though I wish we had that money, I fully understand why voters wouldn’t go for it.

It’s hard to stomach paying extra taxes to finance roads when local electeds, for decades, allowed developers to slap up subdivisions pell-mell but didn’t have the backbone to make them pay for needed roads. Watching the city sit on its piles of Thomas money with little or no forward movement didn’t help either.

Well, things are finally starting to creak forward.

The county recently approved $100 million in bond money and doubled its developer fees to $12,958 per house, all for roads.

The city, on Wednesday night, directed staff to look into bonding and is expected to increase developer fees in the near future.

Assuming the city follows through on the money and sticks to its new cooperative spirit, perhaps then officials will have earned the right to again ask voters for the 1/2-cent sales tax.

They still have a lot to prove, however.

And we’ll be watching.

Lois Henry’s column appears Wednesdays and Sundays. E-mail her at lhenry@bakersfield.com or call her at 395-7373.