Have street lights gone dark in your neighborhood? That could be due to copper wire theft.
Increasing thefts from light poles across the Greater Los Angeles region have forced cities and utilities to get creative, and L.A. has been cracking down on enforcement.
L.A. city councilmember Paul Krekorian recently announced a wave of arrests at metal dealers in the San Fernando Valley.
The darkening rundown
The allure of copper wire has been an issue around the country for years. It’s in plenty of infrastructure, from streetlights to phone cables, and even train tracks.
But it’s also valuable, leading people to steal thousands of copper wires out of the nooks and crannies of L.A. to sell for quick cash.
“We know that Los Angeles, like cities throughout the country, has really been ravaged by the theft of metal,” Krekorian said last week.
The city has a network of 223,000 streetlights, but not all are lit. There’s currently a backlog of lighting outage repairs for the Bureau of Street Lighting.
“Many people may think of this as a minor crime, a petty sort of theft,” Krekorian added. “But it is anything but that. The theft of metal in this city has resulted in repeated, very expensive repairs of the public’s infrastructure.”
In February, a new LAPD task force formed to curb copper wire and other heavy metal thefts. More than 1,600 pounds of copper wire has been recovered with the recent arrests, which Krekorian said is worth about $40,000.
How thefts are affecting L.A.
How do you get an LA streetlight fixed?
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