Gov. Tim Walz went to St. Paul’s Como Lake Wednesday to get a close-up view of the damage that copper wire thieves have caused to 100 light poles, darkening the path around the popular destination.
“Our teams come and replace them and replace them and replace them,” St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter told him about fixing the wire. “We’ve seen these stripped out literally the next day.”
“From the very same one?,” Walz asked.
“From the very same one,” Carter answered.
Walz and Carter visited Como Regional Park to highlight what they say is a need for legislation to curb copper wire theft.
The legislation would require anyone selling copper metal to have a state-issued license. Construction contractors, people who work in residential trades, and other licensed workers would continue to be allowed to sell copper and wouldn’t need a separate license. The bills would still allow residents and businesses to recycle copper materials with scrap metal companies for free.
St. Paul spent $1.2 million last year on repairs and replacement due to wire theft from street lights and traffic signals, and the problem has been growing. The cost was about $250,000 in 2019, according to the city.
Copper wire theft “may seem like a fairly innocent thing,” Walz said as he addressed the media Wednesday. “If you think about it, it is not only incredibly costly and time consuming for the city, it’s also incredibly dangerous. We light our cities so that we make sure that these beautiful places are safe.”
The danger was evident on Christmas Eve when a driver fatally struck Steven Wirtz, a 64-year-old retired Marine, as he walked his dog across a St. Paul street in his North End neighborhood that was pitch black due to copper wire theft.
Concerns from scrap metal industry
Sen. Sandy Pappas and Rep. Athena Hollins, both DFL-St. Paul, are sponsoring the bills. With about a month left in the legislative session, Walz said Wednesday, “This is a top priority” and he encouraged legislators to move the bills forward.
Jeremy Estenson, representing the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, said at a Senate committee hearing last week that the problem with theft used to be catalytic converters, it’s now copper wire and “it will be aluminum. … It will be something else.”
There’s a need “to do something more comprehensive and meaningful as opposed to this whack a mole strategy where we might try to tackle or license whatever commodity happens to be the most popular to steal at that time, probably driven by market prices,” Estenson said.
The industry’s main concern, Estenson added, is “this will only license people who do things legally to start with. … Criminals generally don’t go get their paperwork in order before a night out on the town with their Sawzall and their tools stealing copper.”
Furthermore, scrap metal recyclers believe a side effect of requiring a $250 license for sellers will be “a cooling effect on recycling because there are people who just do a little bit of recycling” and might throw it in the garbage instead of seeking out a license that costs more than what they’d earn from recycling, Estenson.
Estenson said they’d like to continue talking about the price of the license or allowing a small amount of wire to be recycled without a license.
Why officials say licenses are needed
The problem extends beyond St. Paul — 38 mayors signed onto a letter supporting the legislation.
State law already requires scrap metal dealers to collect information from a seller’s driver’s license or identification and the license plate of the vehicle they arrived in.
Requiring a license to sell copper wire would help police because they can’t trace where copper brought to scrap yards is coming from, said St. Paul Police Chief Axel Henry. Though St. Paul labels its wires with “City of St. Paul,” people strip it off, so there’s not another easy way to identify it as stolen.
Someone selling stolen wire could just tell a scrap metal recycler, “It’s mine.’ … And (police) can’t prove where it came from,” Henry said.
People have been charged in cases when they’re caught in the act of stealing wire, and police and St. Paul officials encourage anyone who sees suspicious activity around light poles to call 911.
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