Green energy, logistics fuel brighter future for county

BAKERSFIELD — Even as Kern County wrestles with the impacts of its stalled, two-pronged economy of oil and agriculture, change is coming and potential new avenues for growth are appearing.

Bakersfield College, perched high above the dusty, 10,000-acre Kern River oil field where thousands of rigs pump 24/7, is seeing a surge in enrollment. Many of the new students are crowding into the short-term, employment-friendly vocational classes the community college offers.

“We’re running out of space for things like welding and auto technology,” said Janet Fulks, the college’s dean of institutional effectiveness. She said overall enrollment has grown by more than 4,000 students since 2014, during the peak of the drought and the start of the oil price decline.

Many of those students are older, she added, and aren’t looking for a twoyear degree.

“We’re offering skills classes with a compressed schedule so that students can complete them in a matter of weeks, instead of an entire semester,” Fulks said. “Students can take classes like arc welding and work beyond the oil fields.”

The county’s growing reputation as a hub for alternative energy also points to a different — and greener — future for the community.

With huge windmills spinning in the Tejon Pass and along the crest of the Tehachapi Mountains, Kern County now leads U.S. counties in wind power capacity. Fields that used to sprout cotton plants and row crops now sparkle with acres of solar panels.

Kern County already produces more renewable energy than any other county in the state, according to the California Energy Commission, and the numbers are growing as more companies invest in solar and wind power.

“If there is a positive thing out of the (oil price crash), it’s the shift to green energy, which is keeping some people here,” said Rob England, field organizer for the Kern, Inyo and Mono Counties Central Labor Council.

For a number of suddenly unemployed oil workers, the alternative energy world provided a soft landing.

When union electricians were hit by the same layoffs that devastated the local oil business, it was anything but a disaster for them, said Brian Holt, assistant business manager of Local 428 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers in Bakersfield.

When a number of the oil companies cut to skeleton crews, “our members were able to move straight over,” to solar energy jobs, with virtually no one going without work, Holt said.

President Trump’s affinity for the coal industry and his skepticism about global warming have raised questions about the future of alternative energy. But it’s not just the president who could slow the green energy boom in Kern County.

“We need a real concentration into the green economy, and the only way we can do that is through education and training,” England said. “But the problem with Kern is Kern. A lot of people believe in climate change, but some people don’t. And every time you say something not complimentary to the oil business, you get attacked.”

Change is even spreading to farming, an industry that often has been slow to adapt.

Not that many years ago, cotton was king in Kern County. By 2015, though, cotton couldn’t crack the county’s list of the top 15 crops.

“Cotton is a thirsty crop,” said Beatris Espericueta Sanders, executive director of the Kern County Farm Bureau. “So farmers are replacing cotton and vegetables with permanent crops, like nut orchards, that can live with drip irrigation.”

Another possible path away from reliance on agriculture and energy: logistics.

Kern County is one of “the logistical centers of the state, where Highway 99 and Interstate 5 meet,” said county Supervisor Leticia Perez. “We have a Target distribution center and are trying to attract similar businesses to diversify the county economy.”

Already, huge warehouses are being built around the community of Grapevine, 30 miles south of Bakersfield and less than a two-hour drive from downtown Los Angeles and the rest of the vast Southern California market.

But even with these changes, there’s still plenty to worry about in Kern County, said Perez.

“Development is a moving target. I listened to people tell me how uncertain the process is, since so many challenges can occur legally,” she said. “It’s so uncertain it doesn’t always make sense to make commitments for years down the road.”