Town tops in drinking water contest
LIMESTONE, Maine — The results are in, and Limestone officially has Maine’s best-tasting drinking water.
The Limestone Water and Sewer District earned top honors in the 29th annual Maine Rural Water Association drinking water taste test, held Thursday at the Cross Insurance Center in Bangor.
The MRWA, headquartered in Richmond, has sponsored the annual taste test for 29 years.
“This is great,” Jim Leighton, superintendent of the Limestone Water and Sewer District, said Friday. “You know, we’ve got a good group of people here that strive to make our water the best, and obviously they’ve succeeded — so we’re pretty proud of that.”
Leighton recalled that the district did get into the finals once before, approximately four or five years ago.
“We go down for the conference for water and sewer. It’s a training conference for all the operators, and we gather with other operators from the state,” he explained. As far as entering the taste test goes, “It’s just grab a sample, bring it to the conference and enter it in.”
Last year, Bangor’s water won first place.
A total of 26 samples were gathered for this year’s highly competitive taste test, including 17 samples in the disinfected category, of which Limestone was one, and nine samples in the non-disinfected category.
Serving as judges for the yearly tasting event were Virginia Manuel, state director of USDA Rural Development; Michael Thibodeau, Maine Senate president; and hydrogeologist Andrews Tolman.
After the “taste-off,” judges awarded Limestone with first place and bragging rights of “Maine’s Best Tasting Water.” The Red House Farm Condo Association of Newry was judged to have the best non-disinfected water.
“Congratulations to Limestone Water and Sewer District on winning the coveted title of ‘Maine’s Best Tasting Water,’ said Manuel after the announcement. “With so many quality water systems in Maine competing, selecting a winner was a challenge, but Limestone takes home the title to its proud community.”
Now, the town has the chance to take its water to the national level. “There is a national water conference in Washington, D.C. in February,” Leighton said, “and now that we’ve got top honors for drinking water in the state of Maine, we’re able to take our water to D.C. and go against the entire U.S., although I’m not sure how that works yet.”
He noted no specific changes have taken place in the water system recently, but employees have simply been continuing their quest to provide good water. “It just happened that this year, the flavor was there,” he said.
The atmosphere in the office was decidedly animated. “Everybody’s excited,” said Leighton. “They’ve been talking about it, how nice it is. You do a lot of work, and this is just a really nice, over-the-top feeling for us, that all the hard work that we put into our drinking water leads us to this [award].”
The office has a plaque in honor of their success, but something new is on its way: a traveling trophy.
“We’re actually the first ones to receive that, because it’s a brand-new trophy event this year, kind of like our ‘Stanley Cup,’” Leighton added. “We’ll take it down to the conference with us next year — and maybe we’ll get to bring it home again.”
