Theft Leads to Customers without Water

RUTLAND, Ohio – A theft has led to an entire customer base being without water.

According to Meigs County Sheriff Keith Wood, on June 22, 2020 at approximately 8:30 a.m. deputies were called to Leading Creek Water Conservancy about a theft that occurred during the overnight hours from a water tower site. According to Leading Creek, someone had entered a building on the tower site and removed several pieces of equipment essential to the operation of the entire system. This removal caused the entire Leading Creek System to shut down leaving many in Meigs County without water this morning.

Among the items taken was a monitoring station, an electrical generator, and 6-7 large batteries that were used for electrical backup for the equipment.

Rocky Johnson, General Manager for Leading Creek made this statement on social media, “Last night, someone broke into our main communications building and stole all of our communications,alarm, and telemetry equipment. This had caused our wellfield to shut down. Without any alarm system to warn us of tank levels, and no way for the wells to operate, our main line tanks went empty creating loss of water and low pressures through-out our entire water system. The crew is out and the pumps are now back online, however it takes up to 12-24 hours to bring the system back up to proper pressure levels. We are working with the contractors to restore the communications system so that the crews can communicate with each other. We ask that once your faucets start receiving water that you shut them down as soon as you can. This will help the system to charge up faster. We do understand the need for water and we do ask that if you know of anyone who did this theft to contact the Meigs county sheriffs office. We will also be working on a reduntant system to warn us if this is to ever happen again. Thank you and we apologize for this major event affecting your water service.“

The Meigs County Sheriff’s Office requests that anyone that may be familiar with the location of these items or any other information pertaining to this crime to contact the Meigs County Sheriff’s Office, Dep. Clinton Patterson or Sgt. Frank Stewart at (740) 992-3371.