Reducing Copper Theft in the Electrical Sector: A Strategic Approach

The theft of copper from unmanned substations threatens public safety and the reliability of the supply of electricity. The best way to fight this is with a strategy that involves utilities, the community, vendors and other electricity sector asset owners/operators. A campaign of this scope needs executive attention and support. It is too important to leave to the security department.

The strategy that we employ in security in our sector is a simple one that has three components:

1. We harden our assets.
2. We train our people.
3. We shift from a reactive to a proactive approach.

Hardening Our Assets

There are several aspects to hardening our assets. First, we need an effective physical protection system that is capable of detecting activity at the site, assessing that the activity poses a threat to the site, and delaying adversaries until law enforcement arrives to arrest them.

Second, if you replace stolen copper with more copper, you’ve just made an ATM, and you can expect more withdrawals. Replacing above-grade copper grounds with copper-clad steel (CCS) is effective, as it has no commercial value to recyclers. Its use impacts security, operations, maintenance and engineering, so more than just security will need to be involved. When you use CCS or a similar product, ensure that there are signs on the perimeter warning thieves that there is no money to be made.

Third, electrical components that must be made of copper should be marked with your company’s logo. Cable manufacturers can mark a single strand of multistrand cable with the name of your company, as the Manitoba Hydro example shows. A police officer told me that the real value of this was when they found someone with bolt cutters and a backpack full of cable; because the local utility marked their copper, they could seize the backpack to send it to the police identification lab, getting the stolen material off the street immediately.

Training and Processes that Reduce Danger and Theft

In 2006, I moved from Houston, Texas, where I worked as a safety and security supervisor for an offshore oil drilling company, to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, where I was hired as the security operations manager of an electric utility. Soon after I arrived, a copper thief broke into a construction site and cut an energized 14.7-kV conductor with long-handled pruning shears. The distribution and transmission crew that discovered the damage were so convinced that the thief had to have been injured or killed that they searched the bushes around the site for his body and called the local hospitals. The supervisor told me that they didn’t care about the value of the conductor or the cost of the damage—they just didn’t want anyone to get hurt. Because of the experience I gained in my oil-drilling company role, I realized that what they were describing wasn’t a security issue but rather a safety issue, and that the solution lay in using their safety management program.

I spoke with the manager of substation construction, and he agreed. He told his crews that they were to put strict copper control measures in their safe work plan. (Ever hear of a secure work plan? I haven’t either.) Thirty minutes before the end of the shift, they would stop work and pick up all copper—both scrap and bulk—and put it in the truck and return it to the service center overnight. They would not lay copper cable in a trench unless they had enough time left in the day to fill it in. In short, no copper was accessible to thieves, and the intrusion rate at all construction sites quickly dropped to zero.

From that episode I learned that copper theft prevention measures belong in the safety management program, which will ensure that the employees get the time and resources needed to address it properly.

Going from Reactive to Proactive

Security professionals in the electricity sector are limited in authority and jurisdiction to the organization they work for. Copper theft is a pandemic, so we need to look for partners if we are going to be successful.

Do you want to change the world? Work with your industry association. In Canada, we are represented nationally by Electricity Canada. Our Security & Infrastructure Protection Committee shares security information and best practices among members. Industry associations also have influence with the government, and they can engage federal, state or provincial, and municipal governments on behalf of their members. They can also enlist other critical infrastructure associations, amplifying their voice. Through measures like these, Electricity Canada has been successful in lobbying governments for regulations that can increase the sanctions on copper thieves or make it harder for thieves to profit from their crime. There are many similar organizations in the U.S.

Working with law enforcement is an important part of copper theft prevention. Police understand the importance of electricity to society and are often eager to assist. The most important thing I’ve found when working with law enforcement is that their priority is always public safety. Any time I’ve asked for assistance, I start the conversation by making it clear that we don’t have the slightest interest in the financial aspect of the crime—we only care about protecting the public. I tell them that we are in the business of making, packaging and selling lightning, and that electricity at the voltage levels we find in a typical substation bears little resemblance to the tame stuff that comes out of the wall sockets at home. The public generally has little idea of how hazardous substations can be.

Copper thieves are usually the first people to be harmed when stealing copper from an energized substation. Utility employees could be harmed if equipment that should be grounded isn’t. And if thieves have cut holes in fences, other members of the public can enter the substation and be harmed.

When copper thieves are arrested, the financial aspect of the crime becomes important. Title 18 of the U.S. Code, Section 1366, “Destruction of an energy facility,” states that depending on the intent and the extent, someone who damages an energy facility could face a maximum of five to 20 years in prison. If one of your substations is hit, and the actual or intended damage is $5,000 or more, call the Federal Bureau of Investigation and ask them to get involved. The cost of copper theft is greater than the replacement cost of the stolen material, as it includes all costs to the utility, personnel, fence repair company and so forth, so learn to capture all of the costs for the police. Recent experience in the Pacific Northwest has shown that when word gets out in the criminal community that the FBI is involved and the sanctions are harsh, incidents are reduced.

Conclusion

Copper theft is a manageable problem, but it needs consistent, coordinated effort both inside and outside the organization, and this requires executive leadership. If it is seen as a simple security issue by employees, they will assume that the security department will take care of it. If they see it as a safety issue important to protecting employees and the public, and to their leadership, they will take it more seriously.

Photo captions:

•       US Mag RLJ_7055 copper recycling.jpg: Stripped copper wire is fed into a machine at the recycler that chips it into small pieces.
•       US Mag RLJ_7049 Copper raw chips.jpg: Copper cable is reduced to copper chips for reintroduction into the copper supply chain.
•       US Mag MANHYDRO.jpg: Manitoba Hydro has one strand in their copper cable marked with their name, which allows police to seize any copper that they suspect was stolen so that they can attempt to identify its owner. Recyclers don’t like handling stolen goods and have told me that all copper components, such as grounding stakes, should be marked as well so they can determine if it is legitimate.
•       US Mag Identification Strand.jpg: Copper cable can be manufactured with a unique number stamped on one strand that can be used to identify the owner.
•       US Mag Damaged Shears.jpg: These shears were used to cut an energized 14.7-kV line. The extent of the damage to the shears convinced the distribution and transmission workers that the perpetrators must have been killed or badly injured.
•       US Mag Bulk copper.jpg: Any copper left at a construction site overnight will attract thieves. In this case, the thieves crossed the Saskatchewan River in a small boat to access the construction site. The boat was found later with cut lengths of 500-MCM cable in it.
•       US Mag Bulk copper at recycler.jpg: Without an identifiable marking, it is impossible for police to determine the ownership of copper cable, and the stolen material disappears into the copper supply chain.

About Ross Johnson
Ross Johnson has over four decades of experience in all aspects of security management, including tenures as a professional security manager where he oversaw regulatory requirements, budgets, personnel shortages and an endlessly expanding threat portfolio.. Having spent much of his career in the high-impact/low-frequency quadrant, he now assists organizations by developing programs that help them define the appropriate level of attention and resourcing that their risks need. Johnson has worked in the electric sector since 2006 and held executive committee positions on NERC and Electricity Canada’s security and infrastructure protection committees, including representing Canada on the CIP-014 Standards Drafting Team. He is currently the chair of E-ISAC’s Physical Security Advisory Group and co-facilitates the DBT/VISA workshop for NERC’s E-ISAC. Reach him at ross@bridgeheadsecurity.com.