Owner blames damage to heavy equipment on gravel thieves

A West Point heavy equipment operator says he wished culprits who damaged two pieces of his equipment last Thursday night would’ve come to him and admitted what they had done.

Larry Stewart, owner of Stewart Enterprises, took to social media on Friday with photos of his damaged loader and screener.

His crew discovered the damages when they arrived at the company’s sandpit Friday morning. He knows the damage occurred the previous night because workers had been screening gravel at that location on Thursday. They parked the Komat’su 450 loader between the gravel pile and the screener when they finished for the day.

On Friday morning, however, the loader was backed up against the screener’s chute and the back window was smashed out of it.

The social media post generated many comments and shares, and by Sunday evening, Stewart’s post had generated results.

“We have some information, and this wasn’t kids. It was adults from the same community I grew up in, which is sad, because we’ve worked in every small community in West Prince for the last 10 years and never had anything touched.

On Monday Stewart shared with the Journal Pioneer his understanding of what had taken place: “They were stealing gravel out of our pit and they were drunk and stoned and they run (the loader) up on a pile and, then, they didn’t know what they were doing and it came off of the pile and into our screener.”

He suggested the unauthorized operator probably didn’t know how the heavy machine would respond when the brake was applied. He said that would have caused the transmission to disengage and allowed the machine to coast backwards.

Stewart Enterprises is the second heavy equipment operator in West Prince to report damage to its equipment this month. Equipment parked at a road construction site in Unionvale was damaged July 2, and RCMP recently issued a report seeking the public’s assistance in solving the crime.

Working on straightening out the cab Monday in preparation for installing a new rear window, Stewart Enterprises employee Elmer Dumville imagined the operator would’ve gotten quite the scare when the window and some dirt from the chute blew in on him.

Stewart suspects the operator escaped injury in the incident.

He estimates damage to the two pieces of equipment at about $15,000. He wasn’t sure whether he would be putting in an insurance claim or covering the repairs himself. He wants those responsible to cover the damages.

Stewart reported the damage to the police only on Sunday as he had wanted to give the persons responsible the opportunity to come forward.

“I gave them the chance to come and see me and make it right, but they didn’t want to.”

While disappointed with the damages, Stewart said the response to his social media post is encouraging.

“We are a well-known company. We support everything local,” he said.

“Everybody is sick of this. They’re sick of these assholes running the roads drunk and stoned,” he said. “Everybody is sick of it.”