Months ago Auburn police noted that the arrests and prosecutions of three men had put a serious dent in local occurrences of one frustrating crime.
After that brief but welcome lull, however, public works department staff said last week, that energy has built behind a new wave of wire thefts.
Thieves are again enthusiastically ripping copper wire from underground conduits serving public street lighting systems, at great cost, let alone frustration, staff say, to Auburn and its residents.
“We’ve spent – just looking at our numbers – close to $100,000 on costs and damages or just replacing the wire,” City Engineer Dennis Selle said last week. “And that’s just year-to-date so far, five months into the year… That money comes out of the city’s Street Division first, so the money that we are using to address wire thefts is money we would otherwise be using to repair potholes and other things like that.”
Whereas in the past copper wire thieves picked “ghost towns” like industrial areas, which are deserted at night and on weekends, they’ve started to ply their avocation inside existing neighborhoods, on arterial streets, and on residential plats with infrastructure but no homes.
The Lea Hill and Lakeland Hills have been among the hardest hit areas this year, Selle said.Auburn is not the only victim in this growing epidemic – one major theft recently targeting a Sound Transit Link Light Rail tunnel cost Sound Transit some $750,000 in copper wire.
Traffic Engineer Pablo Para cited as causes a spike in the price of copper, scrap yards willing to pay top dollar for it, a depressed economy, and people out of work or looking for extra money.
While state law imposes a limit on how much of that type of copper wire a person can turn in at one time to a scrap yard without having to disclose personal information, thieves appear to be getting around the stricture by cutting the wire into chunks so they stay just below that threshold. Having gotten their money, they then go back to their vehicles and get another chunk.That they get away with wire thieving under the very noses of the City and its residents is its own story.
“Until we catch them, we won’t know for sure how they do it, but they may be dressed in uniforms and or bringing vehicles that look like they’re authorized vehicles. In the past, they have shown up in white vehicles with red lights, vests, and hard hats and possibly disguised as City, Comcast or QWest vehicles. But they basically go into the underground system that has all these juncture boxes and to light poles and just start pulling the wire out,” Selle said.
“…They’re pulling live, hot wire, so my suspicion is it’s probably not drug tweakers,” Selle said. “It’s people who are knowledgeable about how to work around electricity. It may be out-of-work electricians. It may be people who are knowledgeable with the infrastructure. There have even been reports from some cities where they’ve come in during the day and set up traffic controls, like it was a work site.”
The City is asking people to be vigilant and report suspicious behaviors, as follows:
• During work hours, Monday to Friday, people who see anyone working on wire in the street and have concerns should contact the City, Street division at 253-931-3048. City officials ask to be contacted and will verify whether authorized personnel are performing the work. Descriptions of vehicles, company names, people and license plates are always helpful.
• During non-work hours and on weekends, including holidays, residents who see anyone working with wire in the street should call 911.
• Because such work typically calls for wire to be installed, not pulled out, the sight of somebody loading a big spool of wire is worth a call.
• Residents should not confront anyone they suspect of performing wire theft; instead, they should contact the proper authorities.
“If you’re in a neighborhood and see the lights go out at night – particularly a string of lights go out and you’ve still got power in your home – that’s a pretty good indicator that that’s an unusual situation that would warrant calling 911 and having it investigated,” Para said.
“This time of year it stays light so late that people could be out there stealing wire quite late, and people wouldn’t notice because the street lights haven’t even come on yet. And it’s probably easier and safer because the wires aren’t energized just yet. …”
“These recent thefts have occurred on weekends, and the City very rarely does any work on weekends, and we generally don’t have contractors do work on weekends or at night,” Selle said.
