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Article: Copper thieves short-circuit Valley's freeway lighting: Losses, repairs cost ADOT nearly $500K, official says.
- Article from:
- The Tribune (Mesa, AZ)
- Article date:
- July 30, 2007
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 The Tribune. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Byline: Garin Groff
Jul. 30--Miles of freeways and roads have gone dark at night because copper thieves have ripped out the wires that bring power to them.
The thieves sometimes steal just a few hundred feet of wire at a time, but that can darken up to a couple miles. The outages can last weeks, or in some cases months.
Copper thieves hit freeways especially hard -- up to three or four times a week when the problem peaked, said Doug Nintzel, a spokesman for the Arizona Department of Transportation.
"If you see a bank of lights out nowadays, you can make the assumption that copper thieves have struck," Nintzel said.
Thefts are ...