A small suburb in Hobart has been crowned the winner of Tasmania’s ‘Best Tasting Tap Water’ for 2024.
The IXOM competition held in Devonport on Tuesday put water suppliers from across the state to the test, with Fern Tree ultimately emerging victorious.
TasWater’s General Manager of Operations Brendan Windmeyer said the treatment plant nestled in the foothills of kunanyi/Mt Wellington has a long history of providing ‘exceptional water’ to the community.
“It’s a proud day for the operators of the plant who work around the clock to ensure the water not only tastes great but is safe to drink,” he said.
“We will be looking for back-to-back national titles after Fern Tree’s triumph in 2023 and we can’t wait to see what the national judges think of this year’s entry.”
Water samples in the competition are evaluated through blind taste tests and rated based on the ‘Water Tasting Wheel’, which assesses attributes like colour, clarity, odour and taste.
Hobart’s Lord Mayor Anna Reynolds said the win was an “amazing result” for city residents.
“It’s another great reason to choose to drink tap water, rather than buying imported water in plastic bottles which have more impurities, creates plastic pollution and litter and does not stack up on taste either,” she said.
The event also featured the 2024 Water Main Tapping Competition, where TasWater teams raced to install a valve into a pressurised water main the fastest.
Lynden Thurston and Cameron Lusk of TasWater’s West Coast Tappers team completed the task in just three minutes and 9.83 seconds, earning them the state title.
“The water main tapping competition is a great showcase of the work our operations teams and contractors do day-to-day,” Windmeyer said.
“They’re out there in challenging conditions, tapping live water mains, a skill that almost guarantees you’ll get wet.”
Thurston and Luskwill represent Tasmania at the national ‘tapping’ competition in Melbourne later this year.
