Man pleads guilty to shutting down rural Kansas water system

ELLSWORTH, Kan. (AP) — A former employee of a rural Kansas water system pleaded guilty to closing down the system. Twenty-two-year-old Wyatt Travnichek pleaded guilty Wednesday to shutting down the Post Rock Rural Water District in Ellsworth in March 2019. Prosecutors said Travnichek told investigators he was too intoxicated to remember what happened. A plea agreement calls for him to be sentenced to a year in jail. The system supplies water for about 1,500 customers in central Kansas. Travnichek worked for the district before quitting in January 2019. In March 2019, he shut down the system using a shared pass code that allowed remote access to software that controls the plant.