When times get hard and money is tight, people resort to all sorts of schemes to try and make money and one of them is stealing copper and selling it to recyclers. This is nothing new for Washington State Department of Transportation this has been going on for years.
To put this all into context back in the year 2000 copper was quoted at $1800 a ton. Now, the Federal Reserve Bank of Saint Louis says copper is priced today at approximately $9000 a ton.
According to seattletimes.com,
‘Wire thieves struck Seattle’s transportation system again last week, disabling ramp meters that help break up the rush hour armada of commuters heading northbound on Interstate 5 from Interstate 90. The May 25 theft of the highly sought-after copper wires was one of the 30 incidents in the Seattle metro area recorded by Washington State Department of Transportation officials so far in 2025.’
This is nothing new, we here at Town Square Media in Wenatchee have encountered the same problems. A few years back, somebody went down to our AM transmitter site for 560 KPQ News and tore up our “ground plane”…