World's best tasting water in Tasmania

Water from a small regional town in Tasmania has been declared the best tasting in the world, with TasWater’s Rossarden Water Treatment Plant taking the award for Best Municipal Water for 2021 at the Berkeley Springs International Water Tasting event in West Virginia, United States.

This is the first time water from Australia has won the international award, which included entrants from five continents, 14 countries and 19 US states.

TasWater qualified for the international prize following the utility’s success at the Water Industry Operators Association of Australia (WIOA) Ixom Best Tasting Tap Water in Australia competition.

TasWater Acting CEO Juliet Mercer said the win is a testament to the hard work that went into the organisation’s 24glasses Regional Towns Water Supply Program, which resulted in the removal of all public health alerts on Tasmanian drinking water.

“Just over three years ago, Rossarden was under a Do Not Consume notice. A safe, clean and reliable water supply underpins the health and wellbeing of our communities, which was the driving motivation behind the 24glasses program,” Mercer said.

“The program saw public health alerts removed from 29 Tasmanian towns and drinking water systems through the installation of 17 new water treatment plants, 16 reservoirs and more than 70 kilometres of new trunk mains.

“Seeing a town where so recently you could not even drink the water now recognised as having the best drinking water in the world is an incredible result and is a great source of pride to TasWater.

“This global recognition reinforces that the standard of treatment processes we have implemented is truly world class.”

The Rossarden Water Treatment Plant is run in partnership with Trility, which built and designed the facility as part of TasWater’s 24glasses Regional Towns Water Supply Program in 2018.

Trility Managing Director Francois Gouws said it was a great honour for Rossarden to take out the best tasting drinking water in the world, particularly considering the high calibre competition.

“This makes us very proud of our team of dedicated operators at Trility who put in a lot of work each week at these sites to ensure we are providing the community with great tasting, safe and reliable drinking water, which is leaps and bounds ahead of what they previously had access to in Rossarden,” Gouws said.

WIOA Chief Operations Officer Craig Mathisen said the international recognition showcases the incredible hard work and expertise behind the Australian water sector.

“This celebrates our unsung heroes — the water operators and their crews who, despite the impacts of COVID-19 and before that drought, fires and floods, ensure we have water, which is essential to keep us alive,” he said.

“Our members, including TasWater and Trility, work diligently to deliver high quality drinking water to their communities.”