Ratting Out Copper Theft
June 10, 2015 From Cotton Grower Magazine – June 2015
Shane Burchfiel just knew that critters had been chewing the wire on one of his irrigation pivots again when he got the call. His local irrigation techs were in one of his fields adjusting wells, and they called to tell him that they couldn’t get the unit to start.
“I didn’t think anything about it, because it had happened before when raccoons or coyotes had gotten on the equipment and chewed things up,” recalled Burchfiel, who farms roughly 2,000 acres of cotton and grain crops near Newbern, TN. “But every piece of wire on the pivot had been stripped off. We had not been in that field since harvest, so it had happened over the winter months.”
That was in early 2013. Following a sheriff’s investigation and consultation with his irrigation dealer and a trusted family friend, Burchfiel decided to add the WireRat alarm technology to all four of his pivots.
“Center pivots and electric pump panels are big targets for copper thieves,” stated Julie Upchurch, director of sales for NetIrrigate, manufacturers of WireRat and other irrigation technologies.
Recent industry statistics on scrap metal sales show that incidents of copper theft in the U.S. have nearly tripled in the past five years. That number takes into consideration thefts from utilities, residences, construction sites and other points of opportunity, as well as agriculture.
The concept is simple. A lithium-based battery pack with access to a cellular network is hard wired into the span cable along the top of the pivot to monitor different conductors. If a cut is made in that wire anywhere along the span, it shorts the circuit, and the WireRat automatically sends an alert via phone call, text or e-mail to the producer and up to nine other sources. The battery pack was designed to function for several years without relying on external power.
“The message lets the recipient know that a possible theft is occurring at a particular location and provides the name given to the site, pivot or pump by the grower,” explained Upchurch. “It also supplies the GPS coordinates for the location. That’s important, because most of our customers have the local sheriff’s department as one of their contacts. Those coordinates help the officers find the location quickly.”
The WireRat units work with pivots and also with electric pumps for areas that utilize flood irrigation. The equipment is designed to work with all brands of irrigation equipment.
The technology has already paid off for Burchfiel.
“Earlier this year while I was out to eat with my family, I received a message,” he said. “The sheriff’s department had also been notified, and I helped guide them to the field. We arrived at the field and caught a guy red handed. He had already stripped one span and was working on a second one when we pulled in.
“He dropped his cutters and started running. He obviously thought he was going to do something, but he didn’t get the chance.”
In response to this and other agricultural theft in the area, the local sheriff started a Farm Watch program, as well as a Facebook page – Dyer County Farm Watch – that has generated positive interest in the area and in neighboring counties.
Burchfiel’s WireRat technology is bundled into NetIrrigate’s Pivot Proxy package, which he uses to monitor each of his pivots from his phone, laptop or iPad. The program allows him to track pivot locations, receive start and stop notifications and shut the pivots down remotely.
“It’s a nice timesaver,” said Burchfiel. “We don’t have to check the rigs and walk the fields every day.”
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