Police say an attempted copper theft in Oak Bay likely caused a fair amount of noise.

Oak Bay Police were called Aug. 24 around 6 a.m. after staff at the Monterey Recreation Centre noticed pipes missing from its underground parking lot.

A three-inch diameter copper pipe approximately 100 foot long was left laying in the parking lot.

OBPD says the pipe appears carefully removed as the metal supports were unscrewed. Suspects also used a commercial style ratchet strap to secure a shorter piece of the piping that branched out from the main copper pipe. It appears a vehicle was used to pull on the ratchet strap which caused the large section of the pipe to fall to the ground which would cause a significant amount of noise.

The hardware from the ratchet strap along with a discarded exacto knife was seized for further investigation by the Forensic Identification Section.

Police say the entire section of the copper pipe was left intact.