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On The Scrap Heap: History

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  • On The Scrap Heap: History

    ON THE SCRAP HEAP: HISTORY
    By Roger Alford

    Kentucky.com
    Mon, Oct. 06, 2008
    KY

    FRANKFORT -- Gene Ray cringes at the irreverence of thieves who would
    steal historical markers to sell as scrap metal.

    Ray, a great-great-great-great-great grandson of famed frontiersman
    Daniel Boone, is calling for tougher sentences for people caught
    plundering the bronze, brass, copper and aluminum plaques displayed
    across the country to commemorate places of historical significance.

    The issue arose after a man was sentenced in August to only four
    months in jail for stealing a $10,000 plaque marking the original
    Missouri burial site for Boone. Cut into pieces, the Boone marker
    sold as scrap for less than $100.

    "We were all just horrified," said Ray, an Atlanta resident. "That this
    would happen, especially to someone of such historical significance,
    infuriated many of us."

    In the Western Kentucky city of Henderson, investigators are trying
    to find out who took a cast aluminum marker that stood in front of
    the onetime home of Gov. Augustus Owsley Stanley, who was elected in
    1915. The newly refurbished marker disappeared about two months ago,
    said Ronnie Browning, a superintendent in the state transportation
    office in Madisonville.

    In California, thieves stole a 160-pound bronze plaque last year
    from the base of San Francisco's Mount Davidson Cross. The plaque
    honored victims of Armenian genocide from 1915 to 1918. Police notified
    recycling plants in the San Francisco area to be on the lookout for the
    marker. So far, it hasn't been found. The Council of Armenian American
    Organizations of Northern California paid $11,000 for a new marker.

    Browning said the markers make easy targets for thieves because they're
    accessible and can be easily ripped from their posts or foundations. He
    said he is convinced metal salvagers took the 60-pound aluminum marker
    commemorating Gov. Stanley. Though such markers cost more than $2,000
    to make, Browning said they probably would fetch relatively little
    cash at scrap yards.

    Copper was bringing $2.25 per pound on Friday at Baker Iron & Metal
    Co. in Lexington. Aluminum, depending on its quality, was bringing
    43 cents to 55 cents a pound. Copper alloys like brass and bronze
    were just over $1 a pound.

    Prices have been declining in recent months, said Bob Garino,
    commodities director for the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries
    Inc. in Washington.

    "We're seeing some lows that we really haven't seen in quite some
    time," he said.

    Garino said wholesale prices for copper have fallen since September
    from $3.15 a pound to $2.65 a pound, and aluminum is down from $1.17
    to $1.04. He said the prices still are higher than five years ago,
    when the average price for copper was 80 cents a pound and aluminum
    was 65 cents a pound.

    Cashing in with stolen scrap is risky in Kentucky and more than 30
    other states where legislators have passed laws in recent years
    requiring recyclers to notify police if they suspect someone has
    dropped off stolen metal.

    State Rep. Mike Denham, D-Maysville, said he thinks Kentucky's law,
    which went into effect July 15, has discouraged metal theft. The law
    requires scrap dealers to record the names and addresses of people
    who cash in recyclable metals.

    Utility companies had pushed for the new law primarily to combat the
    theft of copper, which has been stolen from power and telephone lines,
    electrical substations and construction sites. Its ramifications
    reach beyond copper wire to bronze grave markers, urns and flag
    holders that can be melted down for quick cash.

    Jerry Raisor, curator at Fort Boonesborough in Madison County,
    said all kinds of monuments, even statues, are at risk of being
    destroyed. Raisor said judges need to be tough with people who plunder
    anything of historic value.

    "It's pretty pathetic," he said. "These are national treasures
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