YAKIMA — Faced with copper wire thefts that disable warning signs, weather monitoring stations and traffic cameras through Snoqualmie Pass, state road crews are welding shut electrical junction boxes along I-90.
“These are valuable signs,” said Michael Westbay, a regional spokesman for the state Department of Transportation. “It is a safety hazard when they aren’t working. Motorists rely on them to warn what is ahead. They are robbing the state’s taxpayers.”
Agency officials say about 10,000 feet of copper wire has been taken in four thefts this year at a cost of $48,000 to taxpayers. Repairs were being made Tuesday at the scene of the most recent theft at I-90 milepost 61 near Keechelus Dam on the east side of the state’s most heavily traveled mountain pass.
The thefts are part of a trend nationwide that law enforcement experts blame on drug addicts taking advantage of worldwide demand for scrap metal, partly driven by a construction boom in China.
Along I-90 and other roads, Westbay said, thieves take the lids off the junction boxes, cut the wire and pull it out.
Welding junction box lids is the best way to thwart the thieves, although it can mean more work to do when there are electrical malfunctions, said Kenneth Kilseimer, the state’s regional traffic signal supervisor in Union Gap.
“We’d rather spend time grinding welds off than replacing wire,” Kilseimer said.
In other moves to combat highway-related metal theft, the state agency is keeping more equipment and steel and aluminum components in storage yards, expanding the use of security cameras and monitoring construction sites more closely with the help of the Washington State Patrol.
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