St. Paris wins water quality award;Best-tasting water in the United States

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By Paule Simone Brown

Contributing writer

ST. PARIS – The Village of St Paris has been recognized as having the best tasting municipal water in the entire country by the Berkeley Springs International Water Tasting Contest based in West Virginia.

St. Paris was also given a bronze award for having the 3rd best tasting water in the world for the municipal water category. Berkeley Springs reported that water was taken from 100 countries across four continents to compete in this tasting.

Artesian of Pioneer, from Pioneer, Ohio, supplied the water treatment process equipment and built the St. Paris treatment plant located on 370 S. High St. They came to St. Paris recently and took samples to send to the most prestigious water tasting event in the world.

Known as “the Academy Awards of water tasting,” this tasting lasts all day. There are nine judges who are trained to look at, sniff and taste each water under some guidelines like those in wine tasting. According to Berkeley Springs, “The waters were rated for each attribute including appearance (it should be clear or slightly opaque for glacial waters), aroma (there should be none), taste (it should taste clean), mouth feel (it should feel light), aftertaste (it should leave you thirsty for more).”

In a phone call this week, St. Paris’s water and wastewater superintendent for the last 10 years, Ben Shuman, accepted the award. He said, “apparently, they hold this water tasting every year and it is a world-wide event. They pull samples of drinking water from all over the world. Artesian of Pioneer called me and told me St. Paris took 3rd in the world and first in the United States.” He added, “the Village of St. Paris provides just over 2,000 people 250,000 gallons of water per day and 7 million gallons a month.”

Mayor Brenda Cook explained the plant was built in 2018 and said, “I am proud and happy for St. Paris and the water quality we have here. Our thanks go to Joe Sampson, our past village administrator who spearheaded the plant’s construction and under whose leadership it was built.”

Reach the writer at [email protected]

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