TORONTO (Reuters) - A neutral water that tastes of nothing won the "best of the best" award on Monday at an annual competition to find North America's finest drinking water.

The winner, Oklahoma City, outranked 10 other finalists in the contest, which was held on the sidelines of the American Water Works Association conference in Toronto. Champaign, Illinois-based Illinois American Water, winner in 2005 and 2006, was not a finalist this year.

"The winning water in its nothingness and neutrality, pleased all of the judges," said guest judge Jennifer Bain, food editor for the Toronto Star newspaper.

"It had no odor, no taste... It wasn't oily, which was exactly what we were looking for."

A beaming Harold Ceifert, executive director for Oklahoma City Water and Wastewater Utilities Southwest Section, said "love and care" were the key to the city's victory.

"We operate two water treatment plants and it's a continuous competition between operators at both plants to produce the best tasting water they can," he said

We've secretly replaced the water-supply sample with 3.2 beer. Let's see if anyone notices.

They had to get that particular water sample had to come out of Hefner's water suppply. I live off of Memorial and Meridian. I can drink tap water all day long. On some days tap water tastes better than soda.

On the other hand my parents live southside and the water tastes awful. I pretty sure they get their tap water from Draper.

http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i300/aimforcentermass/waterboy.jpg

Now, that's some high quality H2O.

south okc water is pretty decent, i have a water filter pitcher and i just realzied that i havent used it since i moved here.

its just sitting in my fridge. guess i never realyl thought about it until i saw this thread.

I have lived many years in all parts of Okc, north 122nd and Macarthur, and south 119th and may, excellent water both north and south. Straight from the tap with no filter.

This is really surprising to me.

not to me.

OKC water is good, I remember when I lived there.

I've always thought that Okc's tap water was good.

The day that the notion "caught me" was when I drove to Odyessa Texas a few years back to attend my nephew's wedding in Midland ... I'd never been there before. My daughter and I stopped for food @ 100 miles or so east of Odyessa at a What-A-Burger (we love What-A-Burgers) ... in conversation there, a fellow traveler, on learning where we were going, gave us a warning ...


DON'T DRINK TAP WATER AT ODYESSA

On arriving at my bro's house there, I quickly learned what the traveler meant! Apparently no one in Odyessa drinks tap water unless they have no choice ... the water is used for washing machine purposes but little else! It was the most gawd-awful water I've ever tasted.

Kudos to Okc's tap water and those who make it happen!

Many many cities it is completely unthinkable to drink water directly from the tap. I also have heard of people bottling water from Okc and driving it to TX, for their own personal consumption.

I guess it's the general pessimism for Oklahoma creeping in on me. It seems like I hear people all the time complain about our water taste along with roads & bridges, teacher pay, and there just not being "anything to do".

I remember when I moved from rural Moore to NW Oklahoma City years ago that I could not stand the Oklahoma City water. And at least once every year the lake turned or something and it smelled awful. My brother actually got jugs of well water from the farm for years. The well water is still pretty good. Hard for me to believe although I have lived a few other places and the water never compared to the well water taste in any of them.