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MATSLER Clara T From: MATSLER Clara T Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2008 9:51 AM To: DARNELL Kelly A Subject: RG Editorial 9.18.08. Dry up metals market. Make stolen copper harder to sell Dry up metals market Make stolen copper harder to sell Published: September 18, 2008 Opinion: Editorials & Letters: Story It's no longer shocking that thieves would pull copper wiring from the lighting system at Eugene's Amazon Park. What's shocking is that the thieves still can find places to sell it. It's the thieves who are responsible, but one way to fight this particularly dispiriting form of crime would be to shut down the markets for stolen metal. Rising commodity prices, coupled with drug addicts' desperation and disregard for public and private property, are driving an epidemic of metal thefts — not just copper, but aluminum, iron, steel, brass and bronze. Contractors routinely arrive at construction sites to find that spools of wire are missing, or that wiring has been yanked from the walls. Farmers have lost irrigation pipe. Guardrails have been removed from roadsides. Sculptures have been stolen from parks, firehose fittings from buildings and even floral urns from cemeteries. The latest target was underground wiring for the system that lights softball fields at Amazon Park. The sale of the wire might have brought the thieves enough money to stay high until the next day, when they'd be looking for something else to steal. But it will cost the city of Eugene $10,000 or more to rewire the lights, and in the meantime the softball fields can't be used for evening games. Taxpayers and softball players alike are victims of this crime, and people who are members of both categories are doubly aggrieved. At some point, the thieves must have showed up at a scrap yard with all that wire. Maybe they came a few days before with a pickup load of catalytic converters — another frequently stolen item, due to the small amounts of precious metals in the pollution control devices. Maybe they're regular visitors to the scrap buyer, bringing in coils of wire one day and lengths of pipe the next. The buyer's response ought to be something other than, "Put it on the scale" and "here's your money." The 2007 Legislature passed a law requiring scrap buyers to keep better records and to photocopy identification presented by people offering metal for sale. The law also makes metal theft a Class C felony, punishable by a fine of up to $10,000 and up to five years in prison, if the value of the stolen goods is $750 or more. The law is a step in the right direction, but it's plainly not enough. The value of stolen metal should be determined not by its price at the scrap yard, but by the cost of repairing damage caused by its removal. Sellers of scrap should not be paid on the spot, but by a check mailed 14 days later to the street address listed on a sheet of company letterhead or a piece of photo identification. These changes would increase the chances that metal thieves would face meaningful punishments, eliminate stolen metal as a source of instant cash and make transactions more easily traced. None would impose a 1