[BC] Copper and wire theft mitigation

[Mike McCarthy]

He pleaded no contest to our burglary and served 4 days in the county 
jail. He is now in jail long term on the parole violation.  It will 
take longer to repair than he spent in the pokey.

We also had a building in-between tenants which had it's secondary 
service wire cut and stolen.  This service is a 1000A service with 
twin 500CM cables on all three phases and the neutral.  The thief had 
the gonads to cut the LIVE conductors on the pole at the transformer. 
Never caught this guy, but he is known to the police.  He never got 
the copper as the alarm system went off due to the loss of power and 
our people went over to the site since the rest of the area was 
powered. He ran when he realized he was seen.

It was a real mess for two days while our electrician re-wired the 
panel and the power company came in to re-wire the transformers. Had 
to bring in a guard to watch the place overnight until everything was 
back to normal.

Recall a while back that I said I never install overhead service to 
my buildings if there is an option for a pad mounted 
transformer?  Aside from the reduction in lightning strike potential 
hitting the secondary, this is the other primary reason I insist on 
installing pad mounted service transformers for my new installations. 
Vandalism and theft. With the pad mounted transformers, it's next to 
impossible to get into the box without cutting the lock.  And even 
then, there isn't a lot of copper cable exposed.

We're doing a job now where we can remote locate the meter outside 
the fenced compound and bring the service through the foundation into 
the disconnect. Some utilities will allow that, others won't.  This 
utility also is installing aluminum service conductors now.  I 
declined the option as I simply don't trust aluminum conductors long 
term in set screw compression lugs. the reason...they have seen a 
rise in copper cable theft on the service side of the transformer.

We're also alarming the access doors to our generator so as to 
prevent fuel theft and tampering with the genset.

Any station engineer who doesn't consider or manager who declines to 
commit resources for utility security in their overall design is 
asking for nightmare scenarios down the line. We're spending an extra 
$15K to secure the utilities at one site. Our reasoning...one event 
which causes an outage will cost that much to repair and 
recover.  It's a no brainer decision in my book.

MM

At 12:34 AM 12/23/2006 -0600, Jerry Mathis wrote
>I DO hope you prosecuted him and put him back in jail. At least he's off the
>street then.
>
>JM
>
>
>On 12/22/06, Mike McCarthy <Towers at mre.com> wrote:
>>
>>Pipe dream.   Won't happen.
>>
>>We just had a major theft off our roof in broad daylight. The thief was a
>>homeless man who was out on parole (for burglary no less.) The police
>>caught him with a neighbor's garbage can (on wheels) rolling it down the
>>street filled with what was our roof ground. They knew where it came from
>>and called us right away.  We believe, but can't prove this was the same
>>guy coming in a ripping the ground screen out while were rebuilding the
>>site.