LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) – A dozen solar-powered streetlights are coming to the East Las Vegas Valley, all as part of a pilot program to stop copper wire thieves from taking out lights.
Crews have started to put in lights off St. Louis Avenue and Palm Street, just east of Fremont Street. County officials will install 12 on the block.
County officials said each streetlight costs $3,761, amounting to a total of $5,600 with labor costs.
Fonroche Lighting America explained to FOX5 how it works.
“It’s all autonomous, so it’s going to work all through the night. It’s going to provide the light levels that that the city requires,” said Todd Houghton with Fonroche Lighting America. “There’s hardly any copper in these lights at all, if any. It’s all up top,” he said.
“It may be cost-prohibitive to to do it everywhere, but anything we can do to start making a dent in this, [for] the neighborhoods, the major streets, the drivers. That’s part of being a government. You provide street lights,” said Chair Tick Segerblom, whose district lies where the pilot program will happen.
Segerblom said there are around 600 open tickets for repairs in his District E alone. Crews have tried other strategies, installing copper wire at the top of streetlights as a deterrent.
Copper thefts are behind massive stretches of streetlight outages. According to county officials’ latest update, since early 2022, 970,710 feet of copper wire has been stolen from streetlights and public utilities (More than 368,220 feet has been replaced).
County leaders and Sheriff Kevin McMahill have formed a regional copper theft task force tackles crime across the Las Vegas Valley.
Commissioner Michael Naft proposed a new county ordinance to make it harder for thieves to sell and businesses to buy stolen copper. Naft said the county and other local jurisdictions are still working to craft their ordinances.
Naft, county officials and local law enforcement are working on the next step: a passage of a state law to curb the sale and purchase of illegal copper. Naft said it could mirror a 2023 Nevada law on catalytic converters that made possession of a stolen item a felony.
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