Street light outages due to copper wire theft cost St. Paul more than $2 million in 2024

Video Player is loading.
Current Time 0:00
Duration 0:00
Loaded: 0%
Stream Type LIVE
Remaining Time 0:00
 
1x

Street light outages due to copper wire theft cost St. Paul more than $2 million in 2024

Street light outages due to copper wire theft cost St. Paul more than $2 million in 2024

St. Paul Public Works Director Sean Kershaw confirmed his department spent about $1 million more on street light repairs due to copper wire theft in 2024 than in 2023. There were also a few hundred more outages called into the department year-over-year.

The silver lining in the latest annual data was the rate of increase. After years where the number of thefts doubled each year, an increase of a few hundred reports was much less significant, according to Kershaw.

“I think the issue continues, is the way that I would put it,” he said. “What we’ve noticed is the teams in Public Works, the teams in Parks, are doing a good job of preventing the wire from being re-stolen.”

A citywide map provided by St. Paul Public Works showed roughly 2,500 copper wire thefts were reported via the department’s main phone line in 2024.

It was an increase of about 300 reports from the 2023 map 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS first shared last January.

Both annual maps only count reports made over the phone to the department’s main line, leaving out some made online, via email, etc.

“But I’m sure it’s well over half of them,” Kershaw said.

Repairs to street lights due to copper wire theft cost the City of St. Paul about $1.2 million in 2023. In 2024, repairs cost more than $2 million, according to Kershaw.

RELATED: Phone carriers say copper theft is behind lack of landline service for customers in Twin Cities

“I think the theft last year was probably about the same, because what we saw over time was that the theft was doubling each year. And when we look at total… I think we saw the rate of increase go down a little bit,” he said. “But theft was still significant and really expensive.”

Kershaw also said Public Works crews creatively slowed repeat theft from the same lights in 2024.

“What the crews have done is implement ways that make it much harder to pull that copper even if they get the base open,” he explained.

The department also installed about 90 new light poles with copper wire access about 10 feet off the ground, “as opposed to, you know, 10 or 11 inches off the ground,” Kershaw said. “That frustrates thieves and is working.”

Asked if the city had plans to budget for the purchase of additional higher access light poles, Kershaw said, “What we’re doing this year is seeing how the new state law impacts theft.”

“We’re hoping the state law has enough of an impact that we don’t have to spend, you know, one, two or more million dollars a year, and we’re going to see how that goes.”

The lights were just one ongoing target, he added, emphasizing that landline phones continue to be impacted by wire theft.

That’s why Kershaw said he will be looking to that new state law as the primary strategy in 2025 because, if enforced, it should make it much more difficult to sell copper wire illegally.