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Hamilton has world's best tasting H2O on tap

City wins international award for municipal water.

Jim Collins, Hamilton Director of Gas and Water, and Greg Petredis, Water Production Superintendent, show off bottled city water Monday, March 1. Hamilton has some of the best tap water in the world, according to the Berkeley Springs International Water Tasting competition.

Staff photo by Greg Lynch Jim Collins, Hamilton Director of Gas and Water, and Greg Petredis, Water Production Superintendent, show off bottled city water Monday, March 1. Hamilton has some of the best tap water in the world, according to the Berkeley Springs International Water Tasting competition.

ENLARGE PHOTO

Contributed photo Hamilton's water treatment plant produces the winner in the Berkeley Springs International Water Tasting competition.

ENLARGE PHOTO

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By Dave Greber, Staff Writer 1:32 AM Tuesday, March 2, 2010

HAMILTON — As it turned out, Hamilton’s win in this year’s “Water Olympics” wasn’t a preview for Sunday’s gold medal match-up that pitted the United States against its northern neighbor.

Perhaps, the Red, White and Blue should have had available the best water in the world instead of the second-place stuff found across the border.

Besting its 2009 first-place finish as the best tasting water in the country, Hamilton was tapped Saturday, Feb. 27, for having the best tasting water in the world in the 20th annual Berkeley Springs International Water Tasting Awards in West Virginia.

They beat out two provinces in Canada’s British Columbia — Beaver Falls and Greenwood — in the Best Municipal Water 2010 category.

Local officials said they watched with added interest Sunday’s hockey game that ended with Canada’s sudden-death win against the underdog Americans.

“I was hoping it would be a good omen that the U.S. would pull it off, especially when they went into overtime,” said Jim Collins, Hamilton’s director of gas and water.

“If only they had some Hamilton water,” added Greg Petredis, the city’s water production superintendent.

Hamilton began bottling its product — which bubbles from the Great Miami Buried Aquifer stretching from Dayton to the Ohio River — only for local purposes following last year’s win.

When construction of a special bottling room at the city’s south water treatment plant is complete later this month, the operation will have the ability to fill 1,200 bottles an hour to serve local events and city employees.

They plan to keep the operation small for now, Collins said, though the city is exploring whether selling the water — outside of Hamilton — would be a money-maker.

“We would need to go national to make any money,” Collins said. “It’s very competitive to make money. Our goal now is really promotional.”

Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2112  or dgreber@coxohio.com.

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