WHOOPS

Man Admits to Drunkenly Shutting Down Kansas Water System

The 22-year-old man, a former employee of the region’s water plant, allegedly told investigators he was “so intoxicated he didn’t remember anything.”

A 22-year-old Kansas man has pleaded guilty to federal charges after drunkenly shutting down an entire region’s water system in March 2019. Wyatt Travnichek, a former employee of the Post Rock Rural Water District in Ellsworth, is expected to serve a year behind bars on charges of tampering with a public water system and reckless damage to a public computer during unauthorized access, The Wichita Eagle reports. Prosecutors say Travnichek cut off the water supply at a plant that serves about 1,500 customers after remotely accessing the control system. He had resigned from the water district about two months before the drunken act of sabotage. “The defendant said he was so intoxicated he didn’t remember anything,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Christine Kenney told a judge Wednesday.