Copper cables were stolen from the Wilton Commons construction site.
Eighteen electrical spools and five structural spools of copper — a total value of $17,000, according to a Wilton police estimate — were reported stolen from the construction site of Wilton Commons on Station Road at 6:46 a.m. on Jan. 3. The size of the stolen load was estimated to be roughly that of a pickup truck’s capacity.
The reported theft is the latest in a series of copper thefts in Wilton and the surrounding area.
Wilton residents reported several incidents of missing copper downspouts from properties on Grumman Hill, East Meadow and West Meadow Roads in December.
In a possibly related incident, three spools of copper wire — cumulatively valued at about $1,800 — were reported stolen from the CL&P office building on Danbury Road on Dec. 11 at 3:30 p.m.
In Weston, two Stamford men were arrested on Dec. 28 for stealing copper piping from a house on Valley Forge Road, which in the process caused an oil spill into the Saugatuck River, according to The Weston Forum, a sister paper of The Wilton Bulletin.
Weston officers saw two men loading copper pipes into a vehicle near the house, after responding to a call from a Valley Forge Road resident who had reported the smell of “gas,” according to The Forum.
Most scrap dealers require identification and keep daily records of all buybacks of base metals, according to Chase Waste Material Corp. in New Haven. Light copper, the usual component of copper downspouts, currently sells for about $2.50 at Chase Waste.
Prices of copper in general are in slight decline, as the London Metal Exchange warehouses are at their current peak in 11 months, according to a Jan. 9 report by Bloomberg News. This corresponds with a 0.1% decline in the Standard & Poor’s GSCI gauge of 24 commodities, which is a standard pricing index for base metals.
