TheBakersfieldCalifornian.com

OK, I'll say it right up front, infrastructure is BOOOOORING.

It's so dull that if I hadn't written that last word in all caps, you'd have checked out before finishing the word infrastruc... hey! Pay attention.

No one really wants to ponder things like roads and sewers.

But when they go bad they go really, really bad. (Remember the sink hole downtown that swallowed whole cars a few years ago?) And, frankly, we have only ourselves to blame.

"If we continue to ignore our infrastructure, we can expect to enjoy the effects of its revenge," Robert Bea told me.

While the jury is still out on the San Bruno explosion, Bea noted the gas pipeline that exploded there had been in the ground growing older and older as the community grew over it increasing the consequences if there were to be trouble.

"And we just watch it happen."

Bea, a U.C. Berkeley engineering professor, is famous, some say infamous, for reporting how the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' neglect of levees in New Orleans led to the disaster following Hurricane Katrina.

Fixing the levees would have been expensive. But nothing compared to the cost of not fixing them.

Bea is currently studying the Deepwater Horizon oil well disaster in the Gulf, with a report due out in December.

And, wouldn't you know it, he has a Bakersfield connection. Bea worked for Shell here from 1979 to 1981.

I called to get his opinion of a final "report card" put out by the American Society of Civil Engineers on Kern County's infrastructure.

We got an overall C-, which I think was generous.

Bea said our slightly below average grade fits the pattern found by similar report cards throughout California and the nation, which got a D+ for infrastructure in 2009.

In Kern, our cumulative grade was a skosh higher only because we got an A for our solid waste -- garbage.

I would quibble with that grade considering the anemic recycling program we have here, but I'm no engineer and no one asked me.

According to an explanation of the grades, solid waste got an A because of the county's 30 "cutting edge" disposal sites and Bakersfield's "award-winning" green waste facility.

Plus, funding is on a sustainable fee-based approach allowing room for expansion.

We excel in trash. Who knew?

That's just one of 15 areas studied by the engineering group, however. And it wasn't enough to offset the six Ds Kern earned in other important areas, such as imported water and roads.

"Our worst aspect right now is water supply," said Anthony Lusich, former president of the local American Society of Civil Engineers and the engineer who oversaw the report card. "Water is a huge issue for us."

Yes, the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is a mess, no doubt. Bea even called the possible collapse of its levees from earthquake or heavy storms the main act that would make Katrina look like a dress rehearsal.

Closer to home, Lusich said, roads continue to be a problem.

Even with more than $30 million in federal stimulus money, our road maintenance was so far behind that we're still only at a D level.

In the county, 57 percent of roads were rated poor; Bakersfield had a poor rating for 10 percent of its roads.

Rob Ball, director of planning for Kern Council of Governments, which doled out the federal cash, said that money allowed some catch up on the worst roads, but it still wasn't enough.

That's because the gas tax isn't working anymore, he said. Fuel efficiency is to blame.

When the government pushed for higher mileage cars, the action led to a reduction in the pay-as-you-go funding stream for highway and road maintenance. The reason? Better fuel efficiency means fewer stops at the gas station.

One possible long range solution is using odometer readings, but Ball said, we need money now.

While the report card heavily pushes a local half-cent sales tax -- defeated several times at the polls -- as a way for Kern to keep up, Lusich acknowledged now is not the time for government to ask struggling residents for more money.

He and his fellow engineers are just hoping local politicians will keep the report card in mind for future votes.

Good advice.

"We tend to have a very casual attitude toward maintenance," Bea said. "We patch holes, ignore it and hope it won't catch up with us.

"But it always does."

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