The Aspen Police Department is taking calls from anyone who might help lead them to those who sabotaged the city’s natural gas supply Saturday night, Dec. 26, leaving thousands of people in the cold. The department can be reached at 970-920-5400.
There’s the possibility of a long-running, radical environmental advocacy group being responsible for the move; “Earth First!” was scrawled on a pipe at one of the three vandalized natural gas stations. The FBI is working with local police. Cameras were reportedly not installed at the sites.
The vandalism was a particularly harsh move given that this is typically the busiest week in Aspen and that COVID-19 prevents people from gathering in large-group areas such as warming centers. In addition, the outage forced several restaurants and other businesses to temporarily close or curtail their offerings.
While low temperatures threatened to freeze pipes, Black Hills Energy Colorado scrambled to deliver 4,000 space heaters from Denver, distributing them at the Aspen Police Station on Monday evening.
Roughly 3,500 gas meters were affected by the damage, meaning that thousands were left without heat and hot water. Two of the stations are within the city and one further out in Pitkin County. Technicians from Black Hills are currently working door-to-door to re-establish service. Deep snow has made the process slower.
“Our techs have worked through the night to complete the multi-step process to purge and re-pressurize the system,” said a Tuesday morning release from Black Hills. “We were able to begin relighting our most critical customers overnight and the techs are currently enroute across the city to begin relighting customers.”
Holy Cross Energy said it was prepared for the additional demand on electricity and said it would pull from other sources if necessary.
Meanwhile, there has been some discussion as to whether the damage qualifies as terrorism. Most officials concluded that it was an intentional move and that it required some familiarity with the gas operations.
Featured image: It’s unknown if Earth First! was actually behind the vandalism on three natural gas stations, but the group’s name was scrawled at one of the locations. Photo Courtesy: Aspen Police Department
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