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From coast to coast, a crime wave is spreading. Although there is nothing new about stealing metal and selling it as scrap, the rapid increase in copper prices on the world market and the demand for copper is motivating small-time crooks to steal copper at an alarming rate. Demand for building materials in developing markets overseas, particularly in India and Asia, has caused copper prices to increase almost fourfold during the past decade. The rise in prices peaked in 2006, and remained high through 2007. The current market value of one pound of copper averages $3.65.

 Scrap metal yards are highly unregulated marketplaces that, without regulatory scrutiny, serve as an easy place for crooks to sell stolen copper. The metal is difficult to trace and retains its value once recycled. Without regulation, thieves could sell copper scraps at a metal yard in the morning and that same copper could be bundled and sold back to its original owner by noon. 

 Thieves break into commercial and private construction sites and strip out every ounce of copper overnight. They steal pipes from abandoned warehouses. Churches and homes are broken into for copper air conditioner coils, causing tens of thousands of dollars worth of damage for a few hundred dollars of scrap metal. 

 In California, irrigation machinery has disappeared from growing fields. In Ohio, copper urns have been stolen from graveyards. In Honolulu, thieves stole $10,000 worth of toilet valves overnight. In Maryland, a rash of wire thefts has left little leaguers without lights to play night games. The rising cost of copper has also raised the value of copper alloys, such as bronze and brasses, causing them to be targeted as well, and memorial panels have been stripped and in some areas park statues have been stolen. 

 Thieves are increasingly turning to the highest quality sources of copper– power substations, utility poles and electrical boxes. The wiring being stolen from electrical substations is a protective safeguard for the employees working in a substation to prevent them from being shocked and injured. The wires are designed to direct current away from the rest of the substation, reducing the likelihood of electrocution and to help prevent equipment failure. The effect of copper theft on utility companies is both costly and dangerous due to materials loss, transformer damage, and customer power loss. Damaged transformers and substations can cost anywhere from $500,000 to $11 million to repair or replace. 

 Florida’s public power utilities are no exception. Bartow, Homestead, JEA, New Smyrna Beach, Orlando, and Tallahassee have all experienced some form for copper theft. 
 
 Utility workers refer to it as “dancing with the devil” and it has become more frequent in the past two years. There is no national statistic for people killed in copper-theft attempts, but news accounts put the death toll around two dozen in 2007. 

 In Baltimore, Maryland, a 41-year-old man was engulfed in flames and died after cutting a high voltage line with bolt cutters. A Millville, a New Jersey, man was hospitalized with severe burns on his arms after he tried to pull wires from a substation. A man in Cleveland, Ohio, was electrocuted when he tried to take down a power line. In Lexington, Kentucky, one man died and two were seriously injured attempting to steal copper wire, not realizing the utility had switched from solid copper to copper weld– a less valuable material. A copper thief was fatally electrocuted when he grabbed a high voltage line in Vancouver, Washington. In Colorado, a man tried to steal copper wire from a high-voltage transformer that carried up to 13,200 volts, it was raining and the man tried to saw the connecting lines off. He was electrocuted. 

 Large construction sites have become popular targets; fences are cut down overnight and industrial reels of copper weighing several thousand pounds are being loaded onto trucks and driven away. Utility company’s procurement yards, operations warehouses, and maintenance facilities are increasingly becoming targets, where reels valued at $15,000 each are vanishing. In Hutchinson, Minnesota, eleven tons of copper wire, over $40,000 worth, was taken from a telephone company’s warehouse. Nationally, theft-rings have been broken up in Florida, Maine, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. 

 The wave of robberies has forced companies to change how construction projects are executed causing project timelines to be altered and budgets unmet. In the past, contractors would pull all the copper wire early in a project, now it must be done when the building is almost complete. Much of the building material must be kept off site creating additional logistical expenses. Ultimately these costs are transferred to the consumer. 

 Utilities across the nation have been forced to increase security at substation locations. The most important first step, utilities leaders say, is to ensure that crews and contractors know that all scrap material is still property of the utility and instruct their crews to bring the material to a central, secured location. 

 Security at those locations includes; installing security cameras along perimeter fences, clearing foliage from fences and increasing security lighting to make the area more visible. Many utilities also now use copper weld instead of solid copper to replace stolen wire and for use in new projects. Copper weld has the same conductive properties but a lesser market value. 

 In response to the copper theft spree, in 2007, 20 states have passed laws to curb the problem. Most laws require sellers of scrap metal to provide a photo ID, license plate number, and address. 

 The Bonneville Power Administration in 2007 suffered grounding wire theft across the west which mounted nearly a $200,000 replacement cost. They suggested to utilities to color-code their wires. A similar program was implemented in California with success in deterring theft. When painted wire is turned into scrap yards, the proper owner can be notified that someone is trying to sell their wire. This has proved to be a low-cost, but highly effective preventative measure. 

 Several utilities have indicated that by doing something as simple as switching to tinned ground bars, they have seen a reduction in thefts. Tinned bars do not look like copper. To the untrained eye they appear to be less valuable. Additionally, a recycler will need to process the tinned ground bars differently than a regular copper bar, which reduces their scrap value. 

 Although nothing will prevent a determined criminal from removing even the most secure product, making copper harder to remove will decrease the likelihood that it will be stolen and increase thieves chances of getting caught in the act. Tamper resistant shelter ground bar hardware uses low-profile rounded head bolts that cannot be twisted with a wrench. The only way to attach or remove it is with the included security torx driver. 

 Some larger utilities have implemented new technology that both discourages would-be thieves from stealing copper from the company’s substations and helps law enforcement find and prosecute thieves. The nanotechnology marks equipment so it can be identified after it has been stolen. 

 Improving existing measures has proven to be effective as well. Intelligent Video Surveillance (IVS) takes a pre-existing system and adds another level of effectiveness. Utility companies typically set-up “virtual” perimeters around the fence of the substation, and areas within the substation around the transformer. If an animal wanders into the perimeter or trash is blown into it, the system holds steady. If a human approaches the gate of the substation with wire clippers, for example, the system detects the size and orientation immediately, and triggers an event within the IVS. At the utility control center, an alert sounds and a red box appears on a video monitor that draws attention to the violated area. Personnel double-click on the red box to instantly review video of the person entering the gate, while simultaneously watching the perpetrator in real-time in a second window. Security uses this information to take the appropriate countermeasure. 

 These are just a few solutions to a costly problem, some solutions are relatively inexpensive, others require a greater financial investment. One thing is clear, utilities across the board are paying attention to losses that are being incurred regularly; and as long as the global market keeps growing, there will always be a demand for mined materials obtained legally or illegally.  

* Source of article: RELAY- Florida's energy and electric utility magazine