On May 31 at 1:17 p.m., police received a report of willful damage to the beacon site at Saddle Lake on Hardy Mountain.
The beacon site is part of the City of Grand Forks beacon site for airport use.
A previous visit in April didn’t show any damages but when workers attended the site in May they found that the door to the shed was scratched and seven of the 10 solar panels were broken.
“It could’ve been from rocks or sticks or people kicking the panels,” explained Grand Forks RCMP Staff Sgt. Jim Harrison. “There are signs of people having fires and beer cans around the area.”
There is around $600 of damage to the solar panels, but about $5,000 in total damages to repair everything.
Harrison noted because of the remoteness of the area, there are no suspects or witnesses.
“If anybody knows of anything about the damage done to the emergency beacon sites, it would certainly be helpful to know,” he said. “To my understanding, that site is part of the airport beacon system for emergency night landing. You’re messing around with something that can effect a life or death situation.”