TheBakersfieldCalifornian.com

Oh, tweakers! You poor, sad, annoying people.

If only you would use your intense, single-minded focus for good.

We all know that methamphetamine has brought a number of "joys" to our community, not the least of which is an uptick in copper thefts.

Addicts will take it from wherever they can find it, even stripping hot electrical wires from operating water wells. Yikes!

That's a 440- to 480-volt risk they're taking in the middle of the night while most likely high and using the equivalent of oven mitts and barbecue tongs to do their dirty work. All for a couple bucks worth of metal.

"If we could find out who they are, we'd pay them to leave us alone," said Richard Diamond, general manager of North Kern Water Storage District.

About 30 of North Kern's 90 wells were hit recently by copper thieves.

Repair costs range from $3,000 to $5,000 per well, he said.

Copper thieves can also throw a monkey wrench into the overall water system.

The Friant Water Authority, which delivers water to Kern County via the Friant-Kern Canal, had to shut down deliveries last week after thieves broke into one of its block houses and destroyed equipment, said General Manager Ron Jacobsma.

"They must have been out there most of the night," he said of the thieves who used sledge hammers to bash through the cinder block walls.

They got a few feet of power supply line.

The authority doesn't keep spools of copper wire in those houses, just monitoring equipment to check and remotely alter the flow of water in its 150-mile long canal.

Last week, the Friant Authority's deliveries were headed to districts for ground water recharge. But if a similar shutdown were to happen in summer when watering schedules are crucial to crop yield, costs could be far greater than a well repair.

Copper thefts are a regular problem but as the price of metal has increased, so have the hits on wells.

Sheriff's Sgt. Walt Reed got seven new reports in the last two days alone, he said. When spring comes around and farmers check their wells before irrigation season starts, he expects even more.

"I've had farmers tell me they'd tape a hundred dollar bill to their pumps if the thieves would just take that and leave the pump alone."

Even rules meant to dry up the market for stolen copper haven't worked.

For the last three years, scrap yards have been required to get proper identification, photograph the product being brought in and ask where it came from.

And if the "recycler" doesn't meet a specific category, such as being a legitimate business, they won't be paid for three days.

Except there's a loophole (isn't there always?). If someone's recycled at the scrap yard a certain number of times they can get paid immediately.

Tweakers are addicts but that doesn't necessarily mean they're stupid.

They just find a middle man who's been to the scrap yard enough times to get in the "immediate pay" category.

Reed said some scrap yards do send the cops notification of who's bringing what into their facilities and officers can use that to sometimes catch copper thieves red handed.

But it's not a deterrent.

"The pump is still stripped," he acknowledged.

This is a statewide problem that needs legislative action. Reed held out little hope of that until something "huge" happens. Like perhaps the loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars when crops can't get the water they need?

"It's a tough way to make a few bucks," Jacobsma said. "I know jobs are hard to come by, but the irony is they're taking money out of the pockets of people, like farmers, who might otherwise be able to provide a job instead of having to pay to have their wells fixed."

Well yeah, drug addicts-- much like our Legislature -- aren't exactly big on long-term planning.

Opinions expressed in this column are those of Lois Henry, not The Bakersfield Californian. Her column appears Wednesdays and Sundays. Comment at http://www.bakersfield.com, call her at 395-7373 or e-mail lhenry@bakersfield.com