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Matt Wallis
Skagit County Health Department Director Peter Browning taste tests water for the 2008 Northwest Best Tasting Water Contest on Thursday at the Skagit River Brewery.
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Skagit PUD doesn’t make it to top three
MOUNT VERNON — Kevin Tate crouched and tightly clasped his hands as he watched an official of the Northwest Washington Best Tasting Water contest tally scores Thursday night.
Minutes earlier, Tate and his colleagues from the Skagit County Public Utility District had been prancing throughout the Skagit River Brewery’s mezzanine. They had boasted to several other competing water providers there that the PUD’s drinking water would take the region’s best-tasting crown for a second year in a row.
But it was crunch time, and Tate wasn’t exactly overflowing with confidence anymore.
“I’m wracked with nervousness and anticipation,” said Tate, the PUD’s community relations manager, with a wry smile.
Ed Heidt, the PUD’s water-quality coordinator, tried to comfort Tate.
“There’s a reason why we’re called PUD No. 1,” Heidt said, referring to the PUD’s legal name, Public Utility District No. 1 of Skagit County.
Then came a wet blanket, throwing a damper on watery wishes.
Skagit PUD is No. 1 no more. It’s not even in the top three, it turns out.
Everett beat out six water providers to receive the coveted Northwest Washington Best Tasting Water traveling trophy. Four judges collectively ruled that the water of Skagit’s metropolitan neighbor to the south tastes better, smells better and has less aftertaste.
Two other southern neighbors also placed above Skagit. Camano Laguna Vista Water Association was second, while the nearby Camano Water Association placed third. Jeff Lundt, president of the Northwest Washington sector of the American Water Association, declined to announce fourth through seventh places to avoid hurt feelings.
If Tate or Heidt were shocked by the result, their faces didn’t show it. They responded to the winning announcement with a cheer and applause. Everyone is a winner in the water world, several participants said afterward.
“Everyone here produces great water (of) high quality delivered every day,” Mark Sadler said. Of course, champions often say complimentary things of those they beat. Sadler is a maintenance superintendent for Everett’s public works department.
Skagit PUD had entered the competition with much bravado. After garnering first-place accolades at both the Northwest Washington and Pacific Northwest contests last year, one of the PUD’s samples placed fourth in the American Water Works Association’s national water taste test last summer. This led Heidt and other PUD staff to go as far as to taunt its northern neighbor, Bellingham, which won the Northwest Washington title in 2006.
The two water providers swapped good-natured insults throughout Wednesday and Thursday. But creative name-calling couldn’t win over the judges, who sniffed, swallowed and savored seven unmarked samples before naming Everett the winner.
Tate’s confidence returned soon after the winning announcement, however.
“We’ll get ’em next year,” Tate said.
* Franny White can be reached at 360-416-2148 or .
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With Peter Browning as one of the judges, you know that the deck was stacked. This is his way of getting back at the PUD for not rolling over and playing dead. County Health Officer Howard Leibrand and he committed willful perjury in testimony before Munks’ and Dahlstedt’s staged fluoridation hearings. The odds are very slim that in school these two never were made aware of the widespread use of fluoride as the first line of defense against hyperthyroidism before the age of more “modern” drugs. That Leibrand could – with a straight face – state publicly that “only fear and personal beliefs are fueling groups who link fluoridation to the thyroid gland” (Argus: 5/23/07) leaves one to wonder what he and Browning have been promised in return by the WDSF for their support.