Harger: Copper wire thieves keep hitting Seattle playfields. Now kids practice football in the dark

Matt Maynard’s son plays youth football in Ballard. A few weeks ago, the lights at Loyal Heights Playfield stopped coming on.

“Next thing we know, two or three practices go by and lo and behold, no lights,” Maynard told KIRO 7.

Somebody had pried open the electrical boxes and cut out the copper wire. So now, once the sun goes down, a bunch of kids run drills on a dark field, trying to catch a football they can barely see.

“They came in, stole the wires, and here we are with communities without kids being able to play their sports,” Maynard said.

Somewhere, somebody got a few bucks at a metal recycler for that wire. The kids got the dark.

Copper wire theft: $1,000 in wire, up to $100,000 in damage

Casey McNerthney of the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office told me that prosecutors see the same math over and over. The damage runs 50 to 100 times what the stolen metal is worth. Every $1,000 in copper leaves $50,000 to $100,000 in wreckage and repairs behind it.

We’ve seen it here again and again. On the West Seattle Bridge, about $1,000 in wire left ratepayers with a $100,000 bill. A Kent business lost more than $90,000 after the accused thief collected $113.40 at a recycler. Prosecutors say it’s the same story with farm equipment in Eastern Washington, businesses in Ballard, and even 911 fiber-optic lines that thieves apparently mistook for copper.

WSDOT is leaving the lights off in Federal Way

Then there’s Federal Way.

According to the prosecutor’s office, when thieves strip the wire from freeway lights there, the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) leaves some of them dark. It doesn’t have the budget to keep replacing wire that thieves will just come back and steal again.

It’s a sad reflection on where things stand right now. The thieves win. Fixing it costs too much, and they’d just be back next month anyway. So drivers get a dark road, and the only people who come out ahead are the ones with the wire cutters.

That’s a government admitting it can’t protect its own light poles.

King County Prosecuting Attorney Leesa Manion called it a major problem, and proof of why Olympia has to cut off the demand.

Copper recyclers: most play it straight. Some make excuses

The whole thing runs on one fact. Stolen copper is easy to sell.

“Unless they’re caught red-handed, it is really easy to steal copper wire and sell it to a metal recycler,” Manion said. Once the wire’s gone, it’s nearly impossible to prove where it came from. Right now, detectives have to go recycler by recycler, asking to see receipts.

Most recyclers run honest shops. Matt Baum, who hauls scrap out of old appliances with the owner’s permission, told KIRO 7 the thefts make people look at him sideways. “I don’t have to steal from my community,” he said.

But every time a bill like this comes up, you hear from a few recyclers with excuses. They say they need to melt copper down fast, while prices are high. They say the paperwork’s a burden.

Meanwhile, the stripped insulation keeps turning up in encampment cleanups by the pound. That copper went somewhere. Somebody bought it. It’s hard to believe the clerk at the recycling business didn’t have any suspicions.

A photo, a database, and 10 days

The bill Manion wants passed is simple. Recyclers photograph the copper they buy, upload the details to a searchable statewide database, and hold it long enough for police to check it against theft reports. Pawn shops already follow similar rules.

Last year’s proposal on the hold time was 30 days. Recyclers objected. So the prosecutor’s office now proposes the hold time would be only 10 days, down from 30. That seems reasonable.

Ten days. So a detective can find out whether that coil came off a Ballard ballfield.

This bill already died once without a vote. Olympia ran out of time last session. We know this approach works. When Washington started letting recyclers mark and trace catalytic converters, Manion said those thefts plummeted across King County. Dry up the market, and the thieves find something else to do.

So pass it early next session. And to the recyclers doing it right, stand up and say so. The honest shops have the most to gain when the crooked ones can’t compete.

Then maybe the lights come back on in Federal Way.

And the kids at Loyal Heights can see the ball.

Charlie Harger is the host of “Seattle’s Morning News” on KIRO Newsradio. You can read more of his stories and commentaries here. Follow Charlie on X and email him here. 

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