Milwaukee outage was intentional
FBI, police investigate downed power towers
The Associated Press
MILWAUKEE Authorities say they consider the falling of two high-voltage transmission towers that knocked out power for 17,000 customers, including the airport, the result of an intentional act.
It definitely looks like they are tampered with, Oak Creek Police Chief Thomas Bauer said Sunday.
Bolts were removed from a plate that connects the legs at the base of the towers, he said.
It does look like its for the purpose of weakening the structure so it would fall, the chief said. He refused to specify how many bolts were removed or how they were removed.
Police will continue collecting evidence today, Bauer said. The Joint Terrorism Task Force and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are involved in the case.
Police alerted law enforcement agencies in Milwaukee and southeastern Wisconsin to be on the lookout for similar acts, the chief said.
One transmission tower fell on another one Saturday, which took out some We Energies distribution lines, officials said. The towers were owned by American Transmission Co.
Downed wires lay across railroad tracks Saturday night, putting passenger and freight trains of Amtrak and Canadian Pacific Railroad on hold for 26 hours, Bauer said.
The outage shut down screening equipment at General Mitchell International Airport on Saturday. Flights were delayed as passengers and luggage were hand screened.
The outage started at 5:40 p.m. and customers in parts of Cudahy, South Milwaukee, Oak Creek and Franklin areas were without power as of 7:30 p.m., said Wendy Parks, We Energies spokeswoman.
http://www.wisinfo.com/postcrescent/news/archive/local_18174435.shtml
October 22, 2003
Alex Breitler
Record Searchlight
ANDERSON Federal investigators issued an alert across the West Coast Tuesday for a man seen removing bolts from a major transmission line tower, apparent sabotage that one official said "smacks" of an act of domestic terrorism.
Lugging large wrenches, the man on Monday pried off at least 18 bolts each more than an inch in diameter before witnesses intervened, said Anderson Police Chief Neil Purcell.
The witnesses chased the suspect onto Interstate 5, where he sped south into Tehama County and disappeared.
"It clearly has overviews of some kind of domestic terrorist act," Purcell said. "It certainly smacks of that."
The suspect is similar in description to a man seen removing bolts at another tower near Klamath Falls, Ore., earlier in the day, the FBI said.
Targeting transmission lines has often been a goal of left-wing extremist groups making statements about the nation's energy policies or about industrialized civilization in general, experts said.
But investigators could not say for certain whether the suspect is tied to any group.
The 115-kilovolt transmission lines receive electricity from the Central Valley Project, including power plants at Keswick and Shasta dams, and transport it to a substation in the San Joaquin Valley. From there the power is zapped to cities, irrigation districts and military bases as far south as Bakersfield.
Redding Electric Utility is one of 75 customers served by the federal transmission lines, the Western Area Power Administration said.
Ground patrols were increased Tuesday at the administration's 16,000 miles of lines in the western United States.
"There's the potential if you take all the bolts, the tower could come down," said spokesman David Christy. "We're taking this very seriously."
Three witnesses were driving in a car on I-5 about 5:10 p.m. Monday when they spotted the pickup parked on Donald Street, a narrow lane that parallels the freeway and the power lines.
The witnesses, electricians contracting for Sierra Pacific Industries, saw a man leaning down next to one of the towers, Purcell said.
"They thought that it was rather suspicious," said the chief, who declined the name the witnesses. "They decided, 'Let's make it our business.' "
As they drove down Donald Street, the heavyset man jumped over the barbed-wire fence with tools in hand and sped off, Purcell said.
The witnesses followed, watching as the man ran a stop sign at Riverside Avenue and nearly caused two accidents, the chief said.
He headed south on I-5. The witnesses called the California Highway Patrol on a cell phone and chased him as far south as Bowman Road, where they saw a CHP car and stopped following.
"They figured that the guy would be stopped and picked up," Purcell said.
But a bulletin issued by Anderson police had not yet reached all CHP units, and the suspect was never pulled over.
Officers went to the tower and found one of its four legs had been completely unbolted, while another had half its bolts missing. The bolts were later replaced.
The suspect, whom the witnesses said carried large wrenches, must have gone to "a fair amount" of effort to remove the bolts and nuts, Purcell said.
If arrested, he could face a federal charge of destroying an energy facility.
About three hours earlier, a suspicious truck was spotted parked at a 500-kV line in southern Oregon. When utility workers approached, the truck sped away. Seven bolts had been removed from the tower footings.
FBI special agent Karen Ernst in Sacramento said no arrests had been made. Agents were hoping to interview the man, who was described as white, in his early 60s with long, blackish-gray hair and a salt-and-pepper beard.
He may have carried with him a white hard hat, Ernst said.
"The description of the individual is similar at both locations," she said. "Right now we would just like to locate and identify" him.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security was also notified of the suspicious circumstances.
Purcell said the tampering is similar to that seen by groups like the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), considered by the FBI to be one of the biggest domestic terrorist-based movements in the country.
The ELF broke away from Earth First!, which has disrupted power lines in the past, said Ron Arnold, vice president of the Bellevue, Wash.-based Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, which has studied eco-terrorism.
"It could be nothing," said Arnold. "It could be somebody who decided he would like to unwind a few nuts, just for entertainment. But I don't think so."
An anonymous spokesperson for ELF said the group had heard nothing about the alleged sabotage. Reporter Alex Breitler can be reached at 225-8344 or at abreitler@redding.com.
Wednesday, October 22, 2003
http://www.redding.com/top_stories/local/20031022toplo043.shtml
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Electrical Tower Hit By Mystery Vandal
13 Bolts Removed From Base Before Man Scared Off
October 23, 2003
Matthew B. Stannard, Chronicle Staff Writer
Local, state and federal law enforcement officers are searching for a man in a pickup truck who was seen pulling bolts out of the legs of a huge electrical transmission tower near the Sacramento Valley city of Anderson.
"It's my opinion this is a domestic terrorism act by the very nature of what this individual was trying to do," said Anderson Police Chief Neil Purcell. "If all four legs were unhooked from their base and we had any sizable wind velocity, that tower would go over."
Purcell said the apparent vandalism came to light when three electrical engineers drove past the tower on Interstate 5 Monday and spotted a man with a white hard hat crouching beside one of the tower's legs. A silver Toyota pickup truck with Washington plates was parked not far away, he said, a mud- spattered Honda motorcycle strapped to its rear.
Curious, the men left the freeway and doubled back to drive past the man, Purcell said.
"They could see the guy down with what looked like some large ratchet wrenches feverishly working to remove nuts and bolts," Purcell said.
When he spotted the witnesses, the man jumped up, hopped a fence to his truck and sped away toward the interstate, the engineers in pursuit, Purcell said. The man nearly struck two vehicles as he pulled onto the freeway, the chief said, but the engineers were able to follow and call 911 from a mobile phone.
The men gave an Anderson dispatcher the truck's make, direction of travel and license plate, Purcell said. Eventually, the dispatcher became concerned about the civilians in the high-speed pursuit, and told the engineers to end the chase, he said.
"Unfortunately, we didn't come up with the suspect nor did the CHP after that," he said.
Police and officials from Western Area Power Administration, which maintains the tower, inspected the structure and discovered that all of the bolts were missing from one leg and about 3/4 were missing from another -- 13 bolts in all, Purcell said.
The police notified the California Highway Patrol, which in turn notified the California Anti-Terrorism Information Center and the FBI, Purcell said. On Tuesday, he said, Anderson police received a call from police in Klamath Falls, Ore.
"They'd seen our bulletin," he said. "They'd gotten very concerned because about four hours or so before our incident, they saw a very similar incident up there where bolts were taken out and the suspect was seen and the suspect disappeared. Klamath Falls is only 3 1/2 hours away from us."
The man seen in Anderson was white, in his early 60s with long, blackish- gray hair and a salt-and-pepper beard and wire-rimmed glasses, about 5-feet-11 and between 220 and 240 pounds, Purcell said.
The man seen in Oregon had the same description, he said, and a similar vehicle. The vehicle seen in Anderson had Washington license plates with the number A36457P, the chief said.
Authorities have not named any suspects but have put out an alert asking police statewide to watch for the truck.
The truck is registered to a Michael Poulin of Spokane, according to Brad Benfield of the Washington state department of licensing. The registration has a "felony vehicle warning," which may indicate it was reported stolen or may indicate it is wanted by law enforcement, he said.
Poulin's ex-wife in Spokane, Marianne Torres, said that the couple divorced in September and that she hadn't seen him since mid-October and didn't know where he was. Sacramento FBI spokeswoman Karen Ernst declined to comment on Poulin. She did not call him a suspect.
"We have not released anybody's name. We have released a description of an individual and a description of a vehicle that was seen in Klamath Falls and Anderson," she said. "Right now, our main goal is to locate the individual,
identify him, and question this individual."
The Anderson tower is part of Western Area Power Administration's 17,000- mile network of wires in 15 states, said spokeswoman LaVerne Kyriss. The federally owned system carries power from federal dams to publicly owned utilities, she said.
Kyriss said a downed tower would not cripple the network, which is designed to survive damage from natural disasters. Nevertheless, she said, the company has stepped up patrols and is considering its options, such as making the tower bolts harder to remove.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/10/23/MNGUK2HDHQ1.DTL
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Sabotage Attempted At Transmission Tower
One Suspect Seen In Shasta County
October 23, 2003
By Chuck Carroll
Mercury News
Law enforcement agencies are scouring Northern California motels, campgrounds and rest areas seeking at least one man who may have been trying to knock out two huge electrical transmission towers in Northern California and Oregon earlier this week.
The case is being investigated as domestic terrorism, said FBI official Karen Ernst in Sacramento, under a federal law dealing with destruction of an energy facility.
In a bulletin issued to law enforcement agencies and obtained by the Mercury News, the FBI said that on Monday, investigators in the Shasta County city of Anderson discovered ``numerous'' nuts and bolts missing from two of the legs supporting an electrical transmission tower.
Nearly all the bolts on one leg of the 230-volt Anderson transmission line tower were removed, along with about half the bolts on the second. The line moves power south from the Pacific Northwest to the Sacramento region.
If all the bolts had been removed, the tower would be at risk of toppling, said LaVerne Kyriss of the Western Area Power Administration, which owns the line that was vandalized. ``That wouldn't necessarily cause an outage,'' she said, because power would be quickly rerouted.
Despite the safeguards in the system, a successful attack would still threaten the stability of the grid.
The power administration has increased security patrols, Kyriss said, and the missing bolts on the tower in Anderson have been replaced.
The FBI asked law enforcement at all levels to be on the lookout for a man who fled late Monday afternoon when three utility workers confronted him at the foot of the Anderson transmission tower near Interstate 5, about 184 miles north-northeast of San Francisco.
Law enforcement officials identified the man as 62-year-old Michael Poulin, sometimes known as Michael Devlyn, from Washington state. According to the FBI bulletin, Poulin has a record of attempted murder and detonation of destructive devices.
Ernst would not comment on the bulletin, saying it was not intended to be released publicly. Although the bulletin describes the person as a suspect, Ernst said the FBI is seeking him for questioning.
Three hours before the Anderson incident, utility workers about 150 miles north, near Klamath Falls, Ore., saw someone apparently tampering with the base of another transmission tower, power officials and police said. There was no damage to the tower.
Anderson Police Chief Neil J. Purcell said the three electrical engineers who confronted the suspect in Anderson were driving past the tower about 5:30 p.m. when they noticed an unmarked truck and a man with large wrenches hunched at the base of the tower.
The man saw them coming and fled in his truck, a silver 1997 Toyota T-100 pickup truck with a small orange Honda motorcycle attached to the rear bumper.
The engineers followed him and photographed the truck as it headed south on Interstate 5 but backed off at the Shasta-Tehama county line when Anderson police put out an alert.
Witnesses in both incidents gave authorities similar descriptions of the man and the truck. Officials are looking for a 62-year-old white man, about 5 feet 11 and described as overweight. He has long graying hair, a beard, wire-rimmed glasses and brown eyes. The truck he was driving had Washington plates with the number A36457P.
Anyone who sees Poulin, the vehicle, or other suspicious activity is asked to call the FBI's Sacramento office at (916) 481-9110 or the Western Area Power Administration toll-free at (800) 209-8962.
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/7082614.htm
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Power-Tower 'Terrorist' Arrested in California
Man sought for allegedly sabotaging electrical lines tired of being on run
November 2, 2003
© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com
The man sought by federal authorities for allegedly sabotaging electrical transmission lines in the West by removing tower bolts is now custody.
Michael Devlyn Poulin, 62, was arrested this morning in California when he was recognized by a state highway patrol officer, reports the Associated Press.
Poulin had apparently grown tired of being on the run, and was looking to turn himself in. He went to the CHP office in South Sacramento to seek directions to the FBI.
"I'm sort of getting a stiff neck from looking over my shoulder," Poulin told AP in a phone interview before his arrest.
He said he'd been trying to arrange his surrender for two weeks, but failed to do so because of too few specifics from authorities about his legal fate.
"The attorney general, because this covers any number of jurisdictions, refuses to tell me what I'm facing," Poulin told the wire service. "Because the threat of a terrorism charge hangs over me, I could end up in Guantanamo Bay."
As WorldNetDaily previously reported, an arrest warrant had been issued for Poulin charging him with destroying an energy facility, a federal crime carrying up to a 20-year prison sentence.
Since Oct. 20, a number of towers had been sabotaged in California and Oregon prompting federal alerts and concerns of terrorism.
Three of the locations were in the Oregon towns of Madras, McNary and Klamath Falls, with the other incidents in Sacramento and the northern California town of Anderson.
Poulin told the Associated Press he intended to turn himself into the FBI this afternoon after breakfast and goodbyes to family members.
A member of the Peace and Justice Action League of Spokane, Wash., Poulin participated in anti-war rallies earlier this year.
While not admitting any guilt regarding the removal of bolts from the towers which could have caused them to topple, he said his actions were necessary to highlight vulnerabilities to the power infrastructure and its lack of security.
"We have a situation of one person, one wrench. The person in question is 62 years old, overweight, arthritic, diabetic, half-blind and a cancer patient living on a minimum of 12 medication pills a day," Poulin told AP, describing himself.
"If you sit back on your hands and do nothing, you've done nothing," he said. "I guess I'm trying to alert the public to the fact that you don't throw stones from glass houses."
WorldNetDaily reported in August and September about concerns the nation's power grid was vulnerable to terrorist acts, especially by cyber-attack.
The U.S. suffered its worst blackout in history on Aug. 14.
The record outage struck parts of the Northeast and Canada, affecting some 50 million people, including residents of New York City, New Jersey, Connecticut, Ottawa, Toronto, Cleveland and Detroit.
A London-based Arabic newspaper said the terrorist network al-Qaida took responsibility.
"What's puzzling," one terror expert told Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin last month, "is how these government officials rule out terrorism just minutes or hours after an outage hits, yet days and weeks later they still can't pinpoint the actual cause."
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE
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