Saturday, February 14, 2009

Vandals strike SEC poles ... again

Copper stolen from co-op's poles near north substation

Gerald Garner Jr. El Defensor Chieftain Editor

Socorro Electric Cooperative officials are ready to pony up a big reward to catch vandals who rustled the copper grounding strip from power poles in the northern stretches of Socorro County.

According to David Montoya — the co-op's line superintendent — co-op officials were alerted to the vandalism early Sunday, Feb. 8.

"We started getting calls from the Veguita area saying that consumers were all without power," Montoya said.

That outage — which lasted approximately three hours — not only affected Veguita, but the La Joya and Contreras communities as well.

Montoya said he and co-worker Juan Romero immediately headed north in an effort to find the cause of the outage.

"We drove around, patrolling the area several times but were unable to find the problem," he said.

But Romero eventually located a vandalized pole near the Bernardo area substation.

"They stole copper from our poles," a dismayed Montoya said. "They tied up the thin copper strip with a nylon rope, attached it to a vehicle and drove off."

The vandals, however, did not make a clean copper getaway. Instead, the copper fell atop a phase wire, caused a huge flash and prompted the lengthy outage.

Montoya said not only are such acts costly and time-consuming for the co-op, they put the vandals in serious danger.

"It could easily kill someone," Montoya said of the scenario. "They could have been killed for what amounts to probably $20 worth of copper."

Crews are still trying to determine the extent and estimated costs of the damages.

Shortly after 1 p.m., Montoya's team was called into action again when a series of blinks on the lines near Casa Colorada caused more headaches for co-op consumers. Montoya said bailing wire was found tossed across a power line. He said the incidents do not appear to be related.

Last weekend's incident marked the third time in as many months that vandals have struck co-op property.

The first incident — which occurred Tuesday, Nov. 25 — saw vandals shoot more than a half mile of line and insulators with a high-powered rifle. Crews eventually discovered that an additional 3-mile stretch of line had been damaged when the vandals cut the copper grounds.

Damage estimates came in at more than $10,000.

Shortly thereafter, a second incident occurred, prompting officials to scramble to ensure customers had power and that any potential dangers were remedied.

Co-op engineering operations manager Richard Lopez said that while he does not believe the incidents are related, he's upping the ante in an effort to bring the vandals to justice.

"I guess I need to reiterate that we are offering a $5,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest and successful prosecution of anyone who causes damage to any SEC facility," Lopez said.

Lopez said a suspect has been identified in the Nov. 25 incident, now he's hoping the public can help shed some light on the latest incident.

Anyone with information regarding vandalism to co-op property should call the Socorro County Sheriff's Department at 575-835-0941 or Socorro Electric Co-op at 575-835-0560.

Phone issue resolved

Lopez also reported that a technical glitch in the co-op's outage hotline got some area residents charged up.

"There was an incident over the weekend where several consumers were calling to report power outages and ended up being put on hold indefinitely," Lopez said.

The problem, Lopez said, was quickly addressed.

"We apologize to any of our members who were inconvenienced because of this situation," he said. "We remedied the problem as quickly as humanly possible."

New substation

In other co-op news, Lopez reported that Socorro Electric Cooperative's new substation is expected to be online by March. That substation — which is expected to provide more reliable service to residents in the northern part of the county — is located off Highway 47, near Veguita.

ggarner@dchieftain.com

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