Jefferson County Assistant School Superintendent Ralph Dinges is livid.
Over the weekend, thieves broke into the heating and cooling units at South Jefferson Elementary School and ripped out the copper. Dinges says the copper is worth about $1,000, but the damage to the HVAC units is estimated between $200,000 and $300,000 dollars.
Dinges has a back-up unit supplying heat to the school, but the air conditioning will be out for a long time.
Frontier Communications Vice President and General Manager for West Virginia, Dana Waldo, is also visibly angry. Frontier has had 107 copper thefts since last August, where thieves have torn out more than 33,000 feet of copper telephone line.
"It’s an epidemic," says Waldo, whose company experiences about four copper thefts per week.
Copper is valuable–scrap prices are up to nearly $4 a pound–and that profit motive has inspired a dramatic increase in copper thefts of all kinds. It seems nothing with copper in it is safe these days.
The culprits are pulling down copper lines from telephone poles, stealing the copper plumbing from HVAC units, ripping down copper rain gutters, stealing home air conditioning units and even making off with copper memorials from cemeteries.
The thieves then sell the copper to scrap metal dealers.
In West Virginia, frustrated victims and police agencies are asking the Legislature for a new law they hope will dent the copper thievery market by targeting the scrap yards. Senate Bill 528 toughens the reporting requirements on scrap yards and holds them criminally responsible if they buy scrap metal they believe has been stolen.
Additionally, the bill prevents scrap yards from buying or possessing items such as copper telephone wire, historical and cemetery markers or copper from any utility unless it has "written proof that the seller is in lawful possession of the item."
West Virginia Recyclers Association’s Jason Webb, who represents the scrap yard operators, says his group supports the bill, but he believes his industry is already heavily regulated.
Additionally, Webb believes that copper thieves are selling to "gypsy" scrap metal dealers–unlicensed operators who set up temporary locations on weekends to buy the metal.
Others suspect there are some established scrap metal dealers who simply don’t ask questions and deal in cash.
No one seems quite sure whether the proposed new law will make a substantial difference. Frontier Communication’s Dana Waldo wants to try something, anything, that can get his workers back to stringing new fiber optic cables rather than replacing stolen copper lines.
In Jefferson County, Assistant Superintendent Ralph Dinges hopes the thieves who destroyed those HVAC units will be caught, but in the meantime, he’s trying to figure out how to supply the school with some air conditioning when warm weather arrives.
The copper thieves inspire particular ire with the victims. Maybe it’s because the theft is typically accompanied by significant property damage. Or perhaps it’s because those hit by copper thieves just feel helpless right now to stop it.