By Emmanuel T. Erediano
Variety News Staff

THREE key treatment facilities that supply water to Saipan’s primary power plant and many other places in northern Saipan went down yesterday morning after thieves cut and stole the copper wire connected to the deep well pump in Sadog Tasi.
Commonwealth Utilities Corp. spokeswoman Pamela Mathis said Lower Base, Garapan, Navy Hill, Puerto Rico and Sadog Tasi will not have water today, Thursday, as the water supply in these areas was interrupted as early as 10 a.m.
The water supply to the power plant was also stopped due to the incident, she said.
CUC, she said, sent line crewmen and a water division team to the treatment plant near the Sablan Quarry immediately after learning about the incident at around 10:30 a.m.
About 800 feet of wire connected to the SQ-11 and 12 water wells, and 50 feet to the SQ-150 well were cut and stolen.
The team had to work on SQ 150 because it was the one directly providing water to the power plant in Lower Base, which uses water to cool its generators.
Mathis said all six wells had to be shut down while crews replaced the electrical system.
One of the crewmen said all the facilities are connected to each other.
Mathis said the wire was cut so far into the system that the water pump had to be pulled from underground to be rewired.
The crew was expected to work at the scene into the evening to finish the job.
These facilities are also supplying water to households and business establishments in the affected areas.
CUC water division supervisor Allan Lebria said they were racing against time to prevent a shutdown in the power plant’s operation.
Mathis said these thefts are causing significant damage to Saipan and its people.
Police have yet to solve a single copper wire theft.
Mathis said they discovered the theft at 10:30 a.m. at SQ 150 which houses a chlorine gas treatment station that cleans water from six wells.
Water crews verified that at 11:00 a.m., all other Sadog Tasi water wells were still operating normally.
But when water operators conducted inspections, they found that two other water wells about a mile away from SQ 150 had also been damaged.
Mathis said copper wire was stripped from SQ 11 and 12.
These water wells are quite far from the primary electrical system and about 800 feet, or 5 electrical spans, of live wire was stolen from them.
Additional CUC crews and law enforcement agencies were again called to the second crime scene at 2:30 p.m.
Mathis said more than a dozen water well sites have already been hit by copper-wire thieves since the Christmas season.
Whenever this happens, she said the water operations are automatically shut down causing people to go without water.
These are not victimless crimes, Mathis said.
“When chlorine treatment stations are targeted, any well connected to that system is taken out of production pending repairs because public safety cannot be jeopardized,” she said.
Tampering with water systems is a federal crime, she added.
According to Mathis, CUC is reminding the public that these wires are “live” and thieves may be electrocuted.
Anyone with information about these crimes should contact the CNMI Crime Stoppers at 234-7272.