We suppose this email comes as a result of our postings about the results of previous water quality testing competitions…

• Water Taste Test Winner Announced in Connecticut
• Wisconsin Water Department Wins Tap Water Taste Test

• 20th Annual Berkeley Springs International Water Tasting Competition

To answer Leo’s question directly, quite honestly we have absolutely NO IDEA how a person, or water department, would go about entering their water into one of those competitions.

As a good place to begin researching that task, though, try visiting the Berkeley Springs International Water Tasting web page. You could also call The Country Inn at Berkeley Springs where the annual event gets held: 304-258-2210 or 866-458-2210.

As far as other water tasting competitions go, we suggest contacting the sponsoring organization directly since they, better than anyone else, will know the ins and outs of registering a water sample for their respective competitions.

Improving the taste of your water?

Many people in the United States still believe they have to put up with the offensive taste and smell of chlorine in their drinking water. Why? Because somewhere along the lines someone told them that removing/reducing the taste and smell chlorine in their water would cost them a small fortune.

Sorry, but unless they got that knowledge 20 or more years ago, someone lied to them. Many relatively inexpensive options exist for removing/reducing the smell of chlorine in drinking water.

NSF/ANSI certified AND affordable?

Since we know some of you have already thought, “Yeah, but if we want a unit that has certified to an NSF/ANSI Standard for chlorine reduction we WILL have to spend a small fortune, right?”

Nope. Not at all. As a matter of fact, the average person can choose from a number of easy-to-install and highly affordable faucet filters that have certified to NSF/ANSI Standards for the reduction of potential contaminants in drinking water.

As an example, the PUR FM-3700B Faucet Filter has certified to NSF/ANSI Standards 42 and 53 for the reduction of the more than 30 unwanted drinking water contaminants — and the unit costs around $30 most places we checked.

Aside from the unit’s obvious filtering capabilities, we also like the fact that its users can easily replace the PUR Faucet Filter Replacements 3-Stage Filters without having to take out a second mortgage on the house.

A 3-pack of PUR Faucet Replacement Filters (RF-9999) costs around $40 dollars and each filter has an average life expectancy of around 100 gallons depending upon the condition of source water.

February 27, 2010 – A municipal water from the Ohio was named Best Municipal Water in the World during the 20th annual Berkeley Springs International Water Tasting.

Tap water from Hamilton, OH, beat out 43 global competitors to win first place. Last year Hamilton’s water was named best in the United States.

Waters were tasted in four separate flights over two days. 12 judges spent Saturday afternoon and evening tasting finalists in four categories: municipal, bottled, sparkling and purified drinking water.

About 200 people attended Saturday evening’s competition at Berkeley Springs’ The Country Inn. Audience members voted on which waters had the best packaging.

Best Municipal Water 2010

• Best in the World — Hamilton, Ohio
• 2nd place – Beaver Falls, British Columbia
• 3rd – Greenwood, British Columbia
• 4th – Lansing, MI
• 5th – Daytona Beach, FL (gold medal winner in 2005)

Best Bottled Water 2010

• 1st–Ecoviva, Roscommon, MI
• 2nd – Eldorado Natural Spring Water, Eldorado Springs, CO
• 3rd — Almost Heaven, Manassas,VA bottling Berkeley Springs water
• 4th – Denton Spring Water, North East, MD bottling Berkeley Springs water
• 5th – Real Water, Las Vegas, NV

Best Sparkling — 2010

• 1st– Dobra Voda Sparkling, Kratovo, Macedonia
• 2nd — Canadian Gold, Marchand, Manitoba, Canada
• 3rd – Touch Sparkling Spring Water, Marchand, Manitoba
• 4th – Antipodes, Whakatane, New Zealand
• 5th – Pian della Mussa, Village Baime, Italy

Purified Drinking Water — 2010

• 1st – Kittiwake Pure Water, Winnipeg, Manitoba
• 2nd – Crystal Mountain Water, Huntsville, Alabama
• 3rd — Berkeley Springs Purified Water, Berkeley Springs, WV
• 4th — Claire Baie, Oak Creek, WI
• 5th – Ultra Pure Reverse Osmosis Purified Water, Winnipeg, Manitoba

Best Packaging — 2010

• 1st – Bling H2O, Los Angeles, CA
• 2nd – Deep Origin, Whakatane, New Zealand
• 3rd – Climax Spring Water, Huntsville, Alabama
• 4th – Ecoviva, Roscommon, MI (a 100% biodegradable bottle and winner gold medal as best bottled water in the world.)
• 5th – Callaway Blue Spring Water, Hamilton, Georgia

( source )

For those of us not able to find products from the aforementioned winning companies in our local grocery stores, and/or people who refuse to support the bottled water industry, other ways to get safe, clean drinking water exist.