CO - Thousands without gas after intentional attack on gas service lines, Aspen, 26 Dec 2020

[Dallas Volunteer]

Thousands of Colorado residents without heat after attack on gas service

The FBI has joined a criminal investigation of what police said appears to be an "intentional attack" on gas service lines in Aspen, Colorado, that left thousands of residents and businesses without heat as temperatures in the skiing mecca plunged to near zero degrees.

Work crews are scrambling to restore gas service, and local authorities handed out electric space heaters to residents still without heat Tuesday, as a storm is forecast to bring up to 8 inches of snow in the Rocky Mountains region this week. Temperatures are forecast to fall to 2 degrees in Aspen on Tuesday night, according to the National Weather Service.

Aspen police said the apparently coordinated acts of vandalism occurred Saturday night at three separate Black Hills Energy gas line sites, one in Aspen and two elsewhere in Pitkin County.
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[Dallas Volunteer]

Aspen investigation continues as natural gas comes back, along with heat

Seth Hulquist with Black Hills Energy turns gas on at a property on Main St. in Aspen on Tuesday, Dec. 29, 2020. Hulquist and his coworker traveled from Nebraska after volunteering to help with the outage in Aspen. The command center gave a list of 54 properties to Hulquist to relight.

A second reference to a radical environmental advocacy organization was found at another vandalized natural gas pumping site near Aspen, a police official said Tuesday.

However, it remained unclear whether a member or members of Earth First! were behind the vandalization of three Black Hills Energy sites in and around Aspen on Saturday night. That act led to 3,500 residences going without heat and hot water for nearly three days, said Aspen Assistant Police Chief Bill Linn. As of Tuesday night, service had been restored to about 2,000 customers.
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[Filly]

Here we go!

 

[LadyL]

so they wanna kill people for their cause? nice.

 

[Filly]

No security cameras!

What does this say about our infrastructure? They have one picture of a guy with a computer bag wearing "high end" clothing walking around. High end clothing in Aspen? Good luck with that.

Earth First claims they are not a movement. There are only Earth Firsters. What?

 

[Dallas Volunteer]

$10,000 Reward Offered For Information On Aspen's Natural Gas Vandalism

The City of Aspen and the Pitkin County Sheriff together have made $10,000 available to the person or persons who provide information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for disrupting natural gas service to thousands of residences the night after Christmas.

About 3,500 homes were affected Dec. 26th after trespassers tampered with valves at three different Black Hills Energy natural gas sites.

The activity required Black Hills to shut down the system entirely, re-pressurize it, test it, and then go house to house to re-light individual appliances

 

[Dallas Volunteer]

Aspen gas line sabotage continues to perplex investigators

In more than two decades with the Aspen Police Department, Sgt. Rick Magnuson has been involved in only two other cases that rise to the level of the gas line sabotage that occurred here the day after Christmas and left thousands without heat.

The first was the string of violent armed robberies committed by a group of Aspen teenagers in 1999, while the second was the case of Aspen native Jim Blanning, who left four gasoline bombs disguised as holiday gifts around town on Dec. 31, 2008 before killing himself.

“In the 25 years I’ve been here, this is the one I really want to solve,” Magnuson, who heads APD’s investigations unit, said this week. “This is one I want to get.”

However, despite nearly a month of intense investigation by two APD detectives, two investigators with the Pitkin County Sheriff’s Office and help from an FBI agent in Glenwood Springs, the case is progressing slowly, he said.

“It’s a big puzzle we’re trying to solve,” Magnuson said. “We’ve got the outside done and we’re trying to build it. We’re working our way to the middle
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