Right after BART officials admitted Tuesday that they have a problem with metal thieves yanking wire off the system's tracks, yet another incident of copper theft was reported. This time, thieves ripped out two 20-foot sections of thick, electrified cables around 4 a.m. Tuesday morning in West Oakland. Yesterday's theft prompted BART to come clean about a copper theft that set the transit agency back a year on a multi-million dollar project that would have reduced delays and sped up train service systemwide.

That project, the Central Contra Costa County Crossover Project ("CeCo-CoCo-CroPro" for short?) lost a giant spool of copper wire that was stolen from a contractor's yard. BART ended up writing off the loss to its insurance company in a $500,000 claim, but the project, which should have wrapped up at the beginning of 2011, won't be done until January 2012.

The always-on-point BART Police Department, meanwhile, plans to head up a task force along with other agencies that have been robbed of their precious metals. They'd do well to team up with SFPD who, as far as we can tell, have been the only local group to make an actual bust.

Like BART, the no-longer-bankrupt city of Vallejo has also been ravaged by the recent epidemic of copper thievery that is now approaching Grapes of Wrath-caliber Great Depression antics. Vallejo's Public Works director told the Chronicle that $200,000 worth of wiring has been ripped from streetlights and traffic signals since May. Many of the non-functional lights and signals in the town still haven't been repaired.

The price of copper is around $3 to $3.50 at this point and there's actually a law on the books designed to curb sketchy scrap sales by forcing sellers to submit photos of themselves, their goods and even their own fingerprints before they can get paid. Most of the scrap copper gets shipped off to China and other Asian countries where the demand is highest. From there, we assume it just ends up as wiring in a reliable sedan with good gas mileage and is ultimately shipped back to America to be sold to someone who hates riding BART to work. So, it's the stolen copper circle of life, really.

Previously: All Copper Theft Coverage on SFist
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