QUINAULT — Two Aberdeen men face a September trial on theft charges after they were accused of stealing 21/2 temporary bridges from the U.S. Forest Service and selling them as scrap metal.
A trial for Fred Savidge, 52, and Josh Pettis, 34, was set for Sept. 4 during an arraignment in Jefferson County Superior Court on Monday.
Both were released from the Jefferson County jail on $5,000 bail. They had pleaded not guilty.
They were arrested Saturday for investigation of first-degree theft of government property.
Savidge also was charged with possession of methamphetamine.
The drug was found by a deputy as Savidge was being booked into jail, Jefferson County Deputy Prosecutor Chris Ashcraft said Tuesday.
Witnesses Saturday told sheriff’s dispatchers that they saw two men cutting apart bridges on Boundary Road, located 14 miles west of Lake Quinault in West Jefferson County, according to the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office.
Deputy Derek Allen eventually located the two men on Boundary Road.
He said they were in a truck loaded with 2 tons of scrap metal that was once a portion of the missing bridges.
“Their truck was so weighed down, the sheriff described it as a 1-ton [-bearing] truck loaded down with 2 tons of metal,” Ashcraft said.
The deputy reported that the truck’s suspension had been ruined by the weight of steel, he said.
The truck and its contents of steel were impounded by the Sheriff’s Office.
Each steel girder that was taken consisted of two I-beams, each about 45 feet long and 4 feet high and constructed of heavy-gauge steel, Allen said.
Savidge and Pettis are believed to have found the bridges stored or used on logging roads, cut the bridges apart using acetylene torches and transported them to a scrapyard, Ashcraft said.
“I’d never even heard of such a thing,” he said.
Ashcraft said the theft of power lines is more common.
The men reportedly had received $260 per ton for the scrap metal and already had taken and sold 3 tons of the metal to a scrapyard, the Sheriff’s Office said.
Loss or damage estimates for the bridges are expected to be in the tens of thousands of dollars and could exceed $50,000.
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Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5070, or at arwyn.rice@peninsuladailynews.com.