A Bell Aliant official is welcoming the recent arrest of four people in connection with copper thefts from utility poles in New Brunswick last month but says companies need to remain vigilant.
Dana Lohnes, Bell Aliant’s director of field operations in Atlantic Canada, says his company has seen further vandalism in the Fredericton area over the last few days, adding to a spike in copper wire thefts since late summer.
Lohnes says the company has experienced 40 incidents of theft and vandalism in New Brunswick alone since the beginning of October, while it typically sees around 40 such incidents in a year.
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He says he’s not sure why there’s been an increase in what has been an ongoing problem.
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Meanwhile, copper thieves also caused a power outage for about 4,000 Nova Scotia Power customers in Colchester and Cumberland Counties last weekend.
Matt Drover, the utility’s senior director of transmission and distribution operations, says his company is battling the theft problem by increasing video surveillance at its substations and replacing copper wire with less valuable kinds of wiring.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 6, 2022.
