The NB Power head office in Fredericton. Image: Submitted/NB Power
Concerns are growing over the recent thefts of copper wire from NB Power substations.
Thieves struck again over the weekend in the Greater Moncton area.
Spokesperson Marc Belliveau says this is an ongoing problem, “In the last little while it seems to be a bit on the uprise and what we have noticed is it often goes up in frequency in accordance to the price of copper. They are pretty high right now.”
Belliveau says safety is a major concern, “Substations have literally hundreds of thousands of volts and very high amounts of amperage which is what can cause physical damage to a person. If you don’t know what you are doing, you can actually cause yourself severe injury or death, which the last case of that was in Bathurst in 2019. The other issue is our workers are then put in jeopardy when they go into substations to do work on the equipment that has been tampered with, and they don’t know what has been manipulated before they get there. So it is a double safety issue.”
In the case of this weekend, there were around 1300 customers left without power for around two hours, “It has happened before. Last time it was even worse, because it was in the dead of winter,” Belliveau says.
Recent thefts have been reported to RCMP and they are investigating.
Belliveau says unfortunately thieves often strike at night when it is dark, but he asks anyone who might have related information to call police.
