Kent Water Nabs 6th Award in International Contest

The recipe has been the same since about 1930, and it's still winning awards.

The water coming out of the Kent Water Treatment plant and taps all over the city has again placed in the 21st Annual Berkely Springs International Water Tasting contest, in which communities from around the world submit their water to see whose tastes the best.

For 2011, Kent placed fifth in the municipal water category. This year's top winners were: first, Daytona Beach, FL; second, Desert Hot Springs, CA; third, Santa Ana, CA.

Kent is no stranger to the competition.

The city won the first year it entered in 1995, and Kent's water earned a much-talked-about appearance for then-Mayor Kathleen Chandler on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno early in the last decade. Since 1995, the city's water has earned six different awards from the competition, including first-, second- and third-place honors.

Steve Hardesty, manager of Kent's water plant, said little has changed in the lime-soda ash water treatment operation since it started around 1930.

"We’ve been putting out the same softened water, the same water chemistry, the only thing that’s changed since 1930 is we’ve added fluoride to the water,” Hardesty said. "It’s pretty simple."

Perhaps then the secret is how the city's water well field is fed.

Kent's water wells are what's called glacial till, sand and gravel acquifers. Because the surrounding soil is largely sand and gravel — thanks to glaciers that moved through the area thousands of years ago — the acquifers are constantly refreshed. They're also naturally filtered by the sand and gravel, and the temperature is cold thanks to the underground water source.

Surface water supplies, like the city of Akron's Lake Rockwell, change all the time, Hardesty said. And they can succumb to algae blooms and other things that can affect the water quality. Communities that rely on streams or rivers also have to deal with whatever drains into the water.

"If you think about it, all of Portage County, we’re surrounded by sand and gravel operations," Hardesty said. "So it’s a real good glacial till. The recharge is really good.”