Urban Mining: Philadelphia is Losing its Manhole Covers
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 07.24.08
Installing lock on manhole cover; Jessica Kourkounis for The New York Times
It is happening everywhere; the price of metals has climbed so high that everything that isn't nailed down (and a lot that is) is being stolen and "recycled." In Philadelphia, over 2500 manholes and sewer grates have disappeared in the past year, compared to the previous average of 100. People are falling into the holes; “They used to say the streets around here will swallow you up, but they were talking about drugs and guns.” Finally a city worker developed a way to lock them from the inside.
Ian Urbina writes in the New York Times about other cities:
"Phoenix has lost more than 160 of its manhole covers and street storm drains this year, up from 10 last year.
More than 80 drains and manhole covers have been stolen in Long Beach, Calif., this year and at least two local car owners who drove over the open chambers have filed claims against the city.
Starting last year, such thefts in Cleveland, Memphis, Miami and Milwaukee have more than doubled compared with other years, although New York reports no such increase.
“We have had our share of copper theft,” said Michael S. Clendenin, a spokesman for Con Edison in New York. But “New Yorkers are a pretty alert bunch and anyone trying to tuck a manhole under their arm in Times Square would look pretty suspicious.” He added that the utility’s covers weighed 300 pounds. ::New York Times
In Cherry Hill, New Jersey, a man stole a statue valued at half a million dollars, cut it up and sold it for scrap in Camden. Total scrap value: $ 4,000. ::Courier Post
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This trend really irritates me, so it's nice to see that someone is doing something about it. Still, you have to wonder how much installing these all over the city will cost - it would be so much better if we could just count on people not to do idiotic things like this. I think we need tougher laws that sentence people based on the damages caused, not just the value of what they stole as scrap.
The worst example I've seen is this one, where thieves stole a $10 brass valve and caused a $250,000 toxic chemical spill.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/05/07/BAPO10HQF4.DTL
It's like what happend to the Colossus of Rhodes.
It's become a nearly annual event around here that the coroner will have to chip a dead would-be copper-wiring thief out from between two contacts at the local power transformer station.
They'd be safer stealing the fence.
The recycled is in Quotes i would like to know how this stuff is being recycled?
I've read dozens of stories on this type of problem and never once seen anyone suggest the obvious solution - clamp down on the recylcing companies that accept the gear in the first place. If there is no market for scrap of unknown provenance people will stop stealing it. Recyclers are presumably already heavily regulated for environmental reasons, why not extend that to strict accounting of their sources? How much of a brain does it take to spot someone wandering in with a drain cover or shopping cart full of phone wire?
A few successful convictions and they will soon give up bothering with taking stuff from the nickel and dime street "recyclers".
It's being sold to scrap yards in most cases. I'm trying to find a news story similar to what the first guy posted, but from eastern Canada. That one cost millions to clean up, all for 5-10$ in copper line on an oil tank. No luck, though.
couldent they make them like the plug on waterguns, with a chain and a bar that wont come out, so it can be moved out of the way but not taken from the hole, sans a blow torch....
There are some beautiful manhole covers on Passyunk Avenue. They have indian heads on them. I hope they lock them on. I've often thought of having one, though wouldn't. I can't believe they've lasted this long. These are desperate times with no end in sight.
Let me see, IF the manhole covers WERE in the MIDDLE of the road INSTEAD in the driving lane then less people would drive into them RIGHT! So when will the brilliant city leaders AND Engineers start USING their brain and start doin that? DUH!
We just had a section of road repaired by our hospital and they went down to the deep and they still left the man hole covers IN THE DRIVING LANE intead of the center turn lanes where less traffic drives-DDDDUUUH! Now instead of a new smooth drivng lane we get ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump-so the point of redoing the road was ----what?
Oh yes I was in the City of Brotherly (LOVE) Rip Off, is a better term cause that's all this left wing led city does is allow, we don't want to point any fingers,the poor victimes of a poor home to rob steal rape etc-I will never go there nor start a business there ever!
For future and replacement manhole covers can a substitute material like recycled plastic (Trex) be used in a practical fashion? Otherwise, locking them is something that should have been done from the get-go decades ago for safety's-sake.
Stolen manhole covers
Manhole covers are being stolen and sold for scrap. The answer to this problem is obvious. Replace the covers with ones having no scrap value. Ideally, we would use stones. The closest practical answer is ones that are man-made to spec. We could easily cast ceramic material of sufficient strength to meet this need. The new covers should last “forever” and have exactly the needed properties. If they were produced in quantity the unit cost would be equal to or less than the metal ones currently in use. Any lock you can’t go through you can go around so securing the metal covers is a stupid idea. Items of little value are rarely stolen.
I will suggest trying out ferrocement as manhole covers. This construction method uses cement mortar in which is imbedded small diameter steel reinforcement (wires, laths etc). Of designed and emplaced in the right locations in the lids, he mortar takes care of the compressive stresses while the steel the tensile stresses. The fine steel reinforcement dispersed/distributed in the mortar also makes it more difficult to 'mine'.