Metal thieves in Surrey down power poles with a chainsaw
Posted August 30, 2016 5:39 pm.
Last Updated August 30, 2016 7:22 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
SURREY (NEWS 1130) – For the third time this year, a chainsaw has been used to cut down power poles in the Lower Mainland.
Metal thieves are believed to be behind the latest incident involving two poles in Surrey on Sunday.
Mora Scott with BC Hydro says one of the poles in the latest case was de-energized, but the other was carrying 25,000 volts.
“In this situation, bringing down two poles, one of them was not energized thankfully, but the other one was and it actually could’ve killed or seriously injured the people or person that brought it down and not only that, but it does have the potential to significantly injure or kill one of our employees or an innocent member of the public.”
She says the live power pole started a grass fire after it hit the ground. Scott adds it’s obvious the person responsible wanted copper in the transformers.
Metal theft also seemed to be the motivation for a similar crime in Maple Ridge in May. Six more power poles were cut down with a chainsaw in Surrey’s Green Timbers neighbourhood in April. It doesn’t seem metal theft was behind that case.
BC has a metal theft law which allows sales of scrap metal to be tracked in the province. Scott says they’ve noticed this has deterred some copper theft, but not all of it.
BC Hydro is asking anyone who knows something about this theft or sees someone doing something equally dumb with a power pole to call police.
