Manitoba Hydro had to cut power to 1,200 customers Tuesday morning in the area east of Ste. Anne, including Richer. Power was cut at 9:00 a.m. and was to be restored around 10:30 a.m. Spokesperson Bruce Owen says the move is necessary to make repairs after an overnight copper theft from a Richer-area substation.

"Manitoba Hydro started getting calls around 7:30 this morning that people were having issues with the delivery of power to their residences. We went to
investigate what was going on and, at a substation, the Richer-north substation, we discovered that there had been a copper theft overnight."

Owen says it is not the first time that there has been a theft of copper wire from live substation infrastructure. He notes copper thieves sell wire on the black market. But he adds all wire used by Manitoba Hydro is marked so chances are that culprits will get caught when they try to sell it.

RCMP are investigating the theft.