Published: March 12, 2008 08:38 pm      

Criminals clean out copper

McDowell police probe metal thefts from abandoned homes

WORTH — The floods of 2001 and 2002 left scores of McDowell County families homeless, but in some parts of the county, the abandoned residences are being stripped bare of copper, aluminum and steel by people who sell the metals for scrap.

“We haven’t had any complaints from owners of abandoned homes, but we have had several reports of people breaking into vacant homes and stealing all the copper,” Trooper B.J. Garretson of the Welch Detachment of the West Virginia State Police said. “I had one investigation where a woman had to leave her home because part of it was badly damaged in a fire. The next night, someone had come in and stolen all of the copper wires out of the walls.”

Garretson said that he has investigated three similar thefts in recent weeks including a case where a resident had moved to another house, and a person or persons unknown to the state police entered the house, stripped the copper wiring out of the residence and even stole the heat pump.

“We haven’t had as many catalytic converters stolen as in other communities, but we are seeing an increase in the theft of metals,” Garretson said. “They’re starting to steal the hitches off mobile homes. But the ones that are getting hit the hardest are these coal companies and the utilities.”

McDowell County Sheriff Danny Mitchell said that the increase prices for scrap copper and aluminum have lured copper thieves into the rural parts of the county. Mitchell speculated that there is a correlation between the county’s crack down on drugs and the increase in metal thefts. He said that the crack down has driven drug prices higher, which forces drug users to go to extremes to get money to pay for drugs.

“Our biggest problem is people going into remote areas of the county and cutting out long stretches of power and telephone lines,” Mitchell said. “We also investigated a report of all of the copper wiring being stripped out of a house. It was a lot of work for someone to do that. I was thinking that they could have made a lot more money by working that hard at an honest job than they did from selling that copper for scrap.”

Mitchell said that the county deputies are investigating the copper thefts with the state police. “We feel like the people stealing the copper are taking it out of state,” Mitchell said. “We have a good working relationship with the salvage years in McDowell County. They call us when they see anything suspicious,” Mitchell said.

Jake Potter, owner of Jake’s Grocery in Worth said that some structures in the Northfork Hollow were never reoccupied following back-to-back floods on July 8, 2001 and May 2, 2002. “The last people moved out of some of these homes after the last flood,” Potter said. “I’m not really too sure on who owns some of them.”

Gordon Lambert, president of the McDowell County Commission said the county developed a “Clean and Green” program that enables owners of abandoned, dilapidated structures to deed the structures over to the county so crews can demolish the structures. “People who want to participate have to give us permission,” Lambert said. “Our attorney, Sid Bell, drew up the forms we use in the program. We have to own (a structure) before we can remove it.”

Several factors likely combine to drive the prices of scrap metal high, including growth in domestic technologically-based products and infrastructure, as well as growth in emerging markets internationally.

Lambert said that one positive aspect of the higher scrap metal prices is that some people have been returning to open dumps in the county and dragging appliances back to the top of the hill so they can strip the metal to sell as scrap. “It’s making it easier for us to clean up some of these open dumps,” Lambert said.

— Contact Bill Archer at barcher@bdtonline.com