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http://www.newsweek.com/id/137822Rising Ripoffs
Thefts of manhole covers increase as metals prices soar
By Jamie Reno | Newsweek Web Exclusive
May 19, 2008 | Updated: 4:26 p.m. ET May 19, 2008
Three weeks ago 12-year-old Shamira Fingers from South Philadelphia was walking down a city street near her home when she suddenly fell into an open sewer hole. Frantic witnesses called 911, and rescue crews rushed to the scene, pulled her out and took her to Children's Hospital, where she was reportedly treated and released. Investigators say Fingers was very fortunate to escape serious injury or even death after falling six feet into an open manhole, the cover of which had been stolen. In the last year a staggering 600 manhole covers have been swiped by thieves in Philadelphia.
"We used to see a handful taken each year, but nothing like this," Martin McColl, inlet cleaning supervisor for the Philadelphia Water Department, tells NEWSWEEK. "We lost 12 of them just last night in the north Philadelphia area. I'm in absolute shock by what we've seen here over the past year."
Manhole thefts aren't exclusive to Philadelphia. Thousands of cast iron manhole covers in cities across the country have been pilfered in the past year. Chicago lost 200 in one month, with 40 reportedly taken in a single day. Seventy-five have been taken recently in Greensboro, N.C. More than 50 have been stolen in Long Beach, Calif., since January. And in Cherokee County, Ga., more than 30 have been taken in just the last two weeks.
The cast iron covers, which typically weigh between 100 and 200 pounds, are being taken by opportunistic thieves responding to the increased value of scrap metal and the burgeoning demand for recycled metals in China, India, South Korea and other developing nations. In 2001 scrap metal sold for $77 a ton. In 2004 it was $300 per ton, and today it's nearly $500. Stealing the covers is usually a two- or three-man operation, police say, in which the thieves yank the covers out of their holes with crowbars, throw them in the backs of vans or trucks, and take them to scrap metal yards, where they get only $10 to $20 per cover.
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