Arrest warrant issued in suspected power towers sabotage

Associated Press ^ | 10-23-03

[Brian S]

The Federal Bureau of Investigation issued an arrest warrant Thursday for a man who allegedly removed bolts from high voltage transmission towers near Redding and in Oregon. The bureau issued warnings to authorities in four western states.

Local and state officials are participating in the search for Michael Devlyn Poulin, 62, of Spokane, Wash., whom they said was seen tinkering with the leg of a large electrical tower near Anderson on Monday, then driving away in a pickup truck.

[Cultural Jihad]

Update ...

More power towers are discovered vandalized

By Carrie Peyton Dahlberg -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 a.m. PDT Friday, October 24, 2003

As authorities issued an arrest warrant Thursday and the tally of vandalized electric towers grew to four, power experts said this is far from the first time that someone has tried to disable, dynamite or shoot at high-voltage towers.

Sometimes the sabotage has caused outages, and other times it has had no impact at all, even when transmission towers came tumbling down.

"More often than not there's no loss of customer load, no customer outages," said Dennis Eyre, chief executive officer of the Western Electricity Coordinating Council, which sets rules for how utilities operate on the Western power grid.

The reassurances haven't diminished the intensity of the hunt for Michael Devlyn Poulin, 62, whom the FBI named Thursday as its suspect in the attempted sabotage of high-voltage lines in Oregon and California.

"We're most anxious to locate and arrest him so that he's not able to continue attempting these types of activities," said FBI Special Agent Karen Ernst.

Meanwhile, federal power workers said Thursday that the sprawling federal Bonneville Power Authority discovered one tower with missing bolts in northern Oregon on Monday and another in central Oregon on Wednesday. The FBI suspects that Poulin, acting alone, tampered with those two towers, as well as another in Oregon and the one near Redding in Northern California where a culprit was seen, prompting the search.

There has been no indication of why Poulin, who has a background of political activism and an explosives conviction, might allegedly be targeting power lines.

He served time in Folsom Prison for injuring his girlfriend's father with an explosive device, according to a Bee account from 1979. State Department of Corrections records show Poulin served eight years, from 1971 to 1979, after being convicted in San Mateo County of using an explosive device that causes "death, mayhem or great bodily injury."

He later lived in the East Bay Area, where he was active in Palestinian issues, before he and his wife moved to Spokane, Wash., to be closer to their grandchildren, said Mary Moore, a friend, fellow activist and editor of the online Sonoma County Free Press.

Neither violence nor energy issues attracted him when she knew him best and he wrote for her publication, Moore recalled.

The FBI is asking people to call authorities if they spot Poulin or his truck, a gray 1997 Toyota T-100 pickup with a white shell attached and Washington state license plate A36457P.

The FBI does not believe there is any connection with an earlier, unsolved Oregon case of someone removing bolts from guy wires that held up a high-voltage tower near Bend a few days before New Year's in 1999. That tower fell, but power was rerouted, no blackouts occurred, and the tower was righted the next day, Bonneville officials said.

Bonneville helicopter crews have been using binoculars to patrol power lines and look for more missing bolts.

"Bringing down a transmission line, anyplace, can cause major outages. The system is designed to prevent that, but it can happen," said Bonneville spokesman Ed Mosey.

Bonneville was targeted by an extortionist in the 1970s who dynamited towers and demanded money, but even those assaults did not cause outages, he said.

Around the country, attackers have gone after high-voltage towers with welding torches and explosives, and undermined them by shearing off or removing bolts, often with minimal effect, grid experts said.

"There's some resilience built into the system," said Eyre.

That's partly because industry operating guidelines, set by the North American Electric Reliability Council, require that the grid be able to recover without a glitch from the single worst failure of a major power line or power plant, said Lou Leffler, the council's manager of critical infrastructure protection.

Eyre said he believed federal records were once kept on vandalism incidents, but Leffler and others were reluctant to give many specifics, for fear of encouraging copycat or escalating attacks.

News coverage from pre-9/11 days has been far more specific, noting 1980s episodes of lines to a nuclear plant being disabled in Arizona and of a Kentucky high-voltage tower dynamited during a mine strike. In the 1990s, bolt removals took down a small power line in New York state and a Pacific Gas and Electric Co. line near Santa Cruz, in incidents that caused outages, according to published accounts.

Experts say a person wishing to cause major blackouts by downing a tower would need a fairly thorough knowledge of the power grid's workings at that specific point in time.

"The conditions would have to be just right," said Ross McFate, director of line maintenance at the Western Area Power Administration. "Even then ... we have ways of switching things around and getting back up quick, so it's not a critical thing like railroads or taking out the Golden Gate Bridge."

---

Source

[Noumenon]

Missing from the story is this idiot's association with the local Spokane "Peace and Justice Coalition". Thay had one of those retards on TV last night saying,"Well, I just don't know how he could have done this sort of thing, blah blah blah."

"Peace and Justice Coalition," my ass.

[Freemeorkillme]

Good work, CJ.

Here's a BUMP to finding him fast.

[Travis McGee]

What a moron. There are ten easier and more effective ways to do this, without getting caught.

[Free Vulcan]

self-ping

[Travis McGee]

Several towers would have to fall simultaneously on several transmission lines to pose any risk of cascading power outages, said Stephanie McCorkle of the state Independent System Operator, based in Folsom.

Not exactly rocket science.

Strong Santana winds are forecast for this weekend. He may have planned to unbolt 4-5 towers, and counted on the winds to take them over in a close time frame.

[Poohbah]

Yup.

And he has a hard-on against Jews.

How come nobody ever blames Zoroastrians for everything? Why is it always the Jews?

[Travis McGee]

He served time in Folsom Prison for injuring his girlfriend's father with an explosive device, according to a Bee account from 1979. State Department of Corrections records show Poulin served eight years, from 1971 to 1979, after being convicted in San Mateo County of using an explosive device that causes "death, mayhem or great bodily injury."

Peace and justice my Aunt Edna. The guys a convicted bomber who loves the Palis and the itifada, and hates Jews.

[ArrogantBustard]

I think we have our answer: He's a radical envirowacko, with islamist tendencies.

[arthurus]

OK, what flavor is he? Militia whacko? Enviro-weenie? Closet Islamist?

Maybe he is combining several avocations.

[arthurus]

OK, what flavor is he? Militia whacko? Enviro-weenie? Closet Islamist?

Maybe he is combining several avocations.

Or taking commissions from several sources.

[Grampa Dave]

Great job posting this thread two days ago:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1005621/posts

Tampering with power lines in Northern California and Oregon
http://www.redding.com/ ^


Posted on 10/21/2003 10:55 PM PDT by Lighthouse Lady


Local Breaking News:

FBI probes possible power tower sabotage October 21, 2003 — 5:24 p.m. The FBI was searching Tuesday for a man seen tampering with a major transmission line tower in Anderson, an apparent act of sabotage that one local official said has "overviews of some kind of domestic terrorist act."


Excerpted - click for full article ^
Source: http://www.redding.com/

[MeekOneGOP]

Poulin and Torres are both Green party. It figures. These folks ARE whackos !!

Thanks for the heads up !

[Grampa Dave]

Great find.

This organization may be far more dangerous than the ACLU:

National Lawyers Guild

[Grampa Dave]

"He served time in Folsom Prison for injuring his girlfriend's father with an explosive device, according to a Bee account from 1979. State Department of Corrections records show Poulin served eight years, from 1971 to 1979, after being convicted in San Mateo County of using an explosive device that causes "death, mayhem or great bodily injury."

"He later lived in the East Bay Area, where he was active in Palestinian issues, before he and his wife moved to Spokane, Wash., to be closer to their grandchildren, said Mary Moore, a friend, fellow activist and editor of the online Sonoma County Free Press.

---

I think that we have another al Fuqra prison graduate recruitment Islamokazi thug here. He could be labeled an al Fuqra Watermelon Jihadist who hates Joos and GW!

When living in Oakland and at Folsom, he probably claimed to be a light skinned African American. In the Pacific NW, he claimed that he was a dark skinned white guy.

Squantos, keep that camera ready and I guess that I should bring along my 357 as suggested by you.

To all: The info on this terrorist is another reason why a monthly donation to Free Republic pays your share to keep you up on the real news before the rest of America ever knows about it.

[TexKat]

Thanks for the heads up GD.

[Grampa Dave]

You posted, "Strong Santana winds are forecast for this weekend. He may have planned to unbolt 4-5 towers, and counted on the winds to take them over in a close time frame."

Often, when S Calfornia gets the Santanas, Northern California and S. Oregon get very strong winds from the North that shoot down I5 and the Valley. They are very common in late October and early November.

Duck hunters love the strong north winds. The strong north winds force ducks and geese off the Bay, Delta and big bodies of water. The birds fly into the more sheltered smaller water areas where blinds with decoys and hunters wait for their arrival.

Anyone familiar with these late October/early November strong North winds could do what you suggested re rigging several power line towers to go down. They could set up the chain reaction and be hundreds of miles away when the winds actually came up.

[twigs]

He reminds me a little of Dr. Koop, former surgeon general, I think under President Reagan.

[Shermy]

Could be an examples of the convergence of lefties and Islamists.

[Shermy]

Could be an examples of the convergence of lefties and Islamists.

Notably the his targeting aimed for "economic" camage, just like Osama ordered.