Champions Again! Victory as well as the water was sweet for the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit (LTBMU) as they captured their second consecutive Region 5Water Tasting Competition. The water sipping gala was held at the recent R5 Hydrology Conference in Yosemite National Park. And a grand event it was! At a special evening social, each national forest had the opportunity to serve up their best water to the discriminating(?) taste buds of hydrologists throughout the region, as well as to several guest testers, including Kermit Larson of the Washington Office and Andy Leven, R5 Director of Range and Watershed Management. In addition to the water from R5 forests, three wild card samples were thrown in: one from Yosemite National Park and two from the City of Davis (through the graces of Watershed Management Council President Clay Brandow). The Davis water samples were tap water and home-filtered raw water.

Many thanks go to the water tasting organizers, Doris Grinn of the Plumas and Mary Westmoreland of the Stanislaus, whose creatively planned event was a true highlight of the week-long session held in the Incomparable Valley.

Each forest worked hard to find their best surface water, and it showed up from colorful places like Woods Lake, Spanish Creek, Little Truckee River and Fallen Leaf Lake. When the competition began, tasters sufficiently swilled each sample and then rated it on a scale of 1-8 (1 being "high country pristine water"; 8 being "downstream of the toxic train wreck"). It became sparkling clear which water was best and, figuratively speaking, which water had no taste at all.

The rating sheets were quickly tallied and lo and behold the LTBMU did it again! Having won the last competition in 1990 at the R5 Hydrology Conference in Monterey, it became obvious they did not come to Yosemite to be dethroned. Accepting the championship award (two "Aquaman" comic books) were two real aquamen, Mike Lowery and Mike Derrig.

Finishing a close second was the Sierra National Forest, which offered each taster a delectable drink of Dinkey Creek. Accepting the award (a colorful if not-to-useful "biosphere ball") were Margaret Rivers and Dick Wheaton of the Minarets District.

In a dead heat for third place, the honors were split between the Plumas National Forest and the home-filtered water from Davis (sad to think Davis beat out several water samples from national forests!). Accepting for the Plumas was Doris Grinn of the Greenville District, and accepting for Davis was the ubiquitous Mr. Brandow. They were each awarded a bag of "instant invertebrates" (the kind that grow from little capsules into rubber bugs when dropped in water).

The remaining water - and mostly good, it was - ranked between those top three and the forest with the worst water, which shall remain nameless (oh no it won't!). Although it's extremely painful and embarrassing for me, my forest, the Stanislaus, had by far the worst water in all the land! Fortunately it tasted better than it looked, but I guess the tasters just couldn't get past that iron color! In its defense, it was tap water from the Summit Ranger Station, which nearly won three years ago in Monterey (just before the pipes got rusty, I guess). Accepting the dubious honor of having the worst water - to a chorus of hoots by all - was good-sport Summit District Hydrologist Jules Riley. The award? Water purifying tablets!

Yes, the water tasting contest continues to be a hit at each R5 Hydrology Conference. No doubt the LTBMU is already thinking "threepeat" for the next regional gathering. When and where that may be is anybody's guess but another water-chugging competition will be high on the agenda. It was great drinking - and we didn't even need a designated driver!