14 Jul 2021
World's best tasting water found in regional Tasmanian Town
Water from a small regional town in Tasmania, which was once deemed unsafe for consumption, is now the best tasting in the world.
Water from the Rossarden Water Treatment Plant in the state’s Northern Midlands has won the Best Municipal Water for 2021 at the Berkeley Springs International Water Tasting event in West
Virginia, USA.
The global event judged water from five continents, 14 countries and 19 US states.
Significantly, this is the first time water from Australia has won the prestigious award, which is a major coup for the nation and the state.
TasWater Acting CEO Juliet Mercer said the international award was 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,” Ms Mercer said.
“A safe, clean and reliable water supply underpins the health and wellbeing of our communities,
which was the driving motivation behind the 24glasses program. “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 water utility services provider
TRILITY, which built and designed the facility as part of TasWater’s 24glasses Regional Towns Water
Supply Program Work Package One in 2018.
TRILITY Managing Director Francois Gouws said it was a great honour for Rossarden to take out the
Best Municipal Water for 2021 in the world, against some 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,” Mr Gouws said.