tapping the source

How to explain Yucca Valley’s triumph as home of America’s best-tasting tap water at this year’s International Water Tasting competition? Or the felicitous reign of 1999 tap-water champion, nearby Desert Hot Springs?

Santa Barbara water consultant Arthur von Wiesenberger, an advisor to Perrier and trainer of the amateur tap-water judges at this year’s event in Berkeley Springs, W. Va., chalks it up to fewer palate-offending impurities in need of eradication. “Perhaps due to the lower levels of bacteria in the water,” Von Wiesenberger says, “the Mission Water District in Desert Hot Springs and the Yucca Valley water department do not need to put in as many chemicals during the water-treatment process.”

The aquifers of the high desert also may be less toxicologically compromised because, unlike L.A.’s own enormous water supply, they do not have very far to travel. Given L.A. water’s daily commute from the Owens and Colorado rivers and other such sources hundreds of miles away, it’s not surprising that somewhere along the journey it takes on the tainted bouquet of a sun-dappled swimming pool, and must be attacked with strong chemicals. Indeed, tapped at its source instead of from a kitchen sink in Panorama City, the Metropolitan Water District’s Sierra supply actually won the international competition some years ago.

Von Wiesenberger imagines real marketing opportunities for the high-desert California tap, with the water’s very scarcity elevating it to the rarefied status of a fine wine. “I think the remarkable consistency of the region winning the gold at Berkeley Springs for the past two years would inspire a bottler to develop a product based on the water,” Von Wiesenberger says. “And, yes, its limited quantity could elicit a special reserve status.”