Expensive backup generator stolen from Village of Port Elgin

It appears a grinch has visited a New Brunswick village and stolen a $60,000 generator.

A new commercial generator providing backup power for the Village of Port Elgin'swater system was stolen late Friday night or early Saturday.

Port Elgin Mayor Judy Scott said the generator was in place when maintenance personnel tested the water Friday morning.

The robbery occurred between 11 p.m. and aboutmidnight, Scott said in a news release from the village.

"This is a huge loss for a small village of only 425 people," she said.

Jan Legere, a village councillor, said the generator is normallylocated down a road leading to a well and past a chained gate.

The town installed the backup generator in June so that if the power went out, the generator would continue to pump water into the water tower.Without the generator, Legere said, the water in the tower would likely only last two days if the power went out.

"It's just not right that someone would take something like this from a small place that needs it," Legere said in an interview with Maritime Noon.

"Like most rural communities you don't really have very much money to work with."

The generator weighsbetween 5,000 and 6,000 pounds and would have taken a great deal of effort to move, Legere said.

She can't recall a time when anything so large and significant was stolen from the village.

"It seems like something that would happen in New York City, not in the village of Port Elgin."

RCMP in Sackville are investigating. Anyone with information cancall the RCMPat 506-533-5151 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-4877.