LA explores new options as copper thieves target streetlight wiring

Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

 

Connecting state and local government leaders

Transportation departments are scrambling to cope with a spike in copper wire thefts that leave their roads darker and more dangerous.

The city of Los Angeles, like many other municipalities across the country, is dealing with a major spike in copper wire theft from its streetlight network. Between 2018 and 2022, the number of incidents of people stealing copper wire increased by 650%.

The city’s Bureau of Street Lighting has tried numerous approaches to stop the thefts, which can leave several blocks without overhead lights until repairs are made. Those approaches have included installing 1,000 solar-powered lights, which don’t need an outside electric connection to work; putting alarms on pull boxes (access points that make it easier to reach electric wires); and installing cameras nearby. In some neighborhoods, said Miguel Sangalang, the agency’s executive director and general manager, workers have fortified existing structures “where we’re using cement and steel to basically build the biggest castles that we can around our electric systems.”

But with a network of 220,000 streetlights connected by more than enough copper wire to circle the Earth, Los Angeles is looking for additional ways to protect its streetlights. So the city issued a “call for innovation” last month seeking “to discover and test new solutions that are scalable and cost-effective and that will provide the [city] with effective tools to reduce the damage to the city’s street lighting system.”

Those tools could include surveillance systems, alarms, internet-connected sensors, GPS tracking devices, markings on copper wire, locking mechanisms, alternatives to copper and even educational campaigns to reduce copper theft.

“We reached out to other jurisdictions. We’ve done our own homework. We’ve tried to talk to people in the field that are doing the everyday repairs,” Sangalang said. “The reason we’re doing this call is because there are clearly more ideas out there. And we want to get ahead of this and look for new companies that might have similar technologies.”

Transportation departments have long had to contend with copper theft, but the problem appears to be growing in recent years as the price of copper has risen to its highest level in a decade.

City officials in Las Vegas say copper theft that left streetlights dark could have contributed to a bus crash that killed a 7-year-old girl. A city official in St. Paul, Minnesota, said theft is so rampant that repairing the damage is “like a battlefield triage.” Thieves in Providence, R.I., are taking several hundred feet of wiring at a time from construction sites, according to the Rhode Island Department of Transportation, even though the cable carries high-voltage electricity.

Morgan Woodrum, a spokesperson for the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, said copper theft is a problem along most major interstates but has been especially problematic in the Louisville area. About 800 light poles there have been targeted, causing more than $750,000 worth of damage.

“When thieves get into the highway lighting systems, the junction boxes and the controller cabinets, they typically pull, cut and strip the wires,” Woodrum explained. Streetlights work like a string of lights on a Christmas tree, she said. “If they hit one light, it can affect dozens in a span along the highway, so we do have stretches along the highways that are currently dark.”

The state transportation department has partnered with Louisville police and other agencies to try to deter thefts by offering a $5,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest and prosecution of people stealing wire from streetlights.

Kentucky also requires recycling centers to check the identification of people selling copper scrap, and the sellers have to sign a statement detailing their sources of scrap metal.

In Los Angeles, Sangalang said engineers have built the current streetlight network over a century with their top concern being ease of maintenance. That means there are nearly half a million points of entry to the system, making it hard to protect from potential criminals.

The city saw more than 4,500 copper wire thefts last fiscal year, compared to about 600 five years earlier. The thefts could affect as much as 10% of the city’s streetlights at a time, Sangalang said.

Citizens have complained to the city about the outages, and Sangalang is worried about the potential impact dark streets could have on crime. A 2019 University of Chicago study, for example, found that adequate street lighting in New York City led to a 36% reduction in nighttime crime. “This is a really effective environmental design to deal with public safety,” Sangalang said.

But the thefts can affect more than just streetlights. Los Angeles has attached 800 publicly available electric vehicle chargers to its streetlights. Air quality monitors have also been installed, with the help of NASA and Cal State LA, to track pollution. Many streetlights hold up 5G equipment to improve mobile internet service. “We’ve taken the effort to build out this electrical and communications network,” Sangalang said. “That is what we need to safeguard, the opportunity for the future, not just the light itself right now.”

As Los Angeles tests alternatives, it has found benefits and drawbacks to different approaches. 

The self-contained solar-powered lights, for example, could help the city in its efforts to improve sustainability and resiliency. They would continue to work even if an earthquake or tsunami took out the power grid. But they wouldn’t be able to support the communications or electrification functions of current streetlights, Sangalang said.

Fortifying lights against thieves may deter them, but it is time-consuming and labor-intensive. It can involve breaking up sidewalks and pouring more concrete for 15 to 18 lights on a circuit at a time, Sangalang said. “We’re not talking about trying to change a light bulb,” he explained. “It’s more akin to rewiring your house, when you have to take out your walls to do these things.”

Some cities have experimented with using aluminum wiring instead of copper. But aluminum is less conductive than copper and has a shorter shelf life. “The engineers are telling me that just the resistance can create areas where it might actually start a fire,” Sangalang said. So the agency is only testing that out for specific situations.

“What we’re finding is that there’s not one ideal solution for the issue,” he said. “We will look to deploy everything. That’s been the charge of the mayor: Get the lights on and make sure they stay on, because that’s what helps make our neighborhoods feel safe.”

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.