Four Jasper youths involved in the summer vandalism of two municipal water wells have written a letter of apology to the community. The letter, which appears on page six of this week’s issue of the Fitzhugh, is one of the alternative measures assigned to the four young men as punishment for their role in the August incident.

While their indentites were protected by the Youth Criminal Justice Act, Curtis Horton, Jake Alleyne, Ryker Indic and Gareth Jones chose to sign the letter.

“We felt it was kind of hiding, not telling our names,” Horton told the Fitzhugh when asked what had motivated their decision not to remain anonymous. The four are splitting 600 hours of community service over the course of the next year and will also make a presentation to their fellow high school students on vandalism.

Early in August, debris and gasoline were dumped into recently-drilled test wells after the well caps had been removed with a rivet gun. The affected wells were not connected to the town’s water supply at the time of the vandalism and tests later confirmed that town water was not affected by the incident. The cost of repairing the damaged infrastructure came in at $65,000.

The well coverings have since been welded on, according to Ken Quackenbush, Jasper’s director of environmental services.

While the caps may not have been completely secured in order to facilitate testing at the sites, the drilling company that Quackenbush was working with was surprised that anyone would have gone to the lengths required to vandalize the wells.

“JR Drilling said that they’d never experienced that kind of sabotage,” he said. “We had caps on these wells that weren’t hard to take off, and someone did.”

One statement in the youths’ letter surprised Quackenbush. The four boys claimed they had not realized they were vandalizing water wells as they were participating in the incident.

“I don’t know what else you could think they were ... it’s a pipe sticking out of the ground,” said Quackenbush. “It’s pretty difficult to imagine that people wouldn’t have known that they were wells. We’d been drilling all summer, getting noise complaints ... I guess if the kids weren’t paying attention it’s possible.”

Asked about the statement, Jake Alleyne said that he and the others involved had no idea about the nature of the damage they were doing.

“We didn’t think that they were water wells and that it would cause so much damage to the town.”

The RCMP are continuing to investigate other individuals in connection with the incident and have charged 19 year-old Jason Pierre Medig with mischief and property damage.