4/16/2025
WT Staff
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April 16, 2025 1130 am EDT
SDWA CrimeBox
Historic Conviction Fiscal Year 2022; Case ID# CR_3181(Kansas)
Drunk text incident triggers remote shutdown of a drinking water plant
One of three criminal convictions under the Safe Drinking Water Act in Kansas
The defendant in this case was a former employee of the Post Rock Rural Water District located in Ellsworth, Kansas. The defendant started as an employee of the public drinking water facility in January 2018, operating the water treatment plant by day and monitoring after hours via remote login.
After one year of employment, the defendant resigned. Several weeks later, the Post Rock Rural Water District plant was infiltrated by an unauthorized remote login. One of the plant's water filtration units was disabled, triggering a total shutdown. Investigators found the source of the remote incursion had come from the defendant's cellular phone.
Investigators learned that the mobile phone had been in the possession of the defendant the night of the unauthorized access. The defendant claimed to have no memory of the night in question. As it goes, it was a drunken text that sequenced the water facility shutdown.
The defendant plead guilty to one count of tampering with a public water system and one count of reckless damage to a protected computer system during unauthorized access. The individual was not fined, rather ordered to make restitution and sentenced to three years probation.
Federal Fine: $0; Restitution: $2,532.83 Probation: 36 months
See last week's CrimeBox, "One hundred barrels of oily brine injected underground, every day, for more than a year", here.
SDWA CrimeBox briefs are compiled from EPA Criminal Enforcement records.
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