ROCK RAPIDS—Lyon & Sioux Rural Water System has the best tasting water in Iowa, according to its peers.
The rural water system in Rock Rapids was given the designation by the Iowa Rural Water Association.
Lyon & Sioux Rural Water System manager Bonnie Koel explained the process of the voting and how winning the award works.
“It’s made up of rural systems in small towns,” Koel said. “They have an annual meeting ever year and they have a contest that you can bring a sample of your water and they have independent judges who judge it. We’ve been entering that contest for a lot of years and we finally won.”
Bruce Fink, an operator at Lyon & Sioux Rural Water System in Rock Rapids, manages a water filter at the company’s Larchwood treatment plant. Some of the water is tested at the facility and other tests are conducted by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.
She said the water is graded based on how clean it is and how good it tastes to the judges.
The conference was held February in Des Moines.
The judges on the panel were Grant Menke, a U.S. Department of Agriculture state director; Kate Sand, a USDA Rural Development community programs director; Lori McDaniel, the water quality bureau chief for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources; and Corey McCoid, a water supply operations supervisor for the Iowa DNR.
Rathburn Regional Water System in Centerville placed second and Wapello Rural Water Association in Ottumwa placed third.
As a result of Lyon & Sioux Rural Water System winning the award, the company will have the opportunity to travel to Washington, D.C., in February to have its water compete at the national level.
Dave Harmsen, the operations specialist at Lyon & Sioux Rural Water, said there is no secret formula to the water
“We add chlorine as our disinfectant and we add a chemical that will take out the iron and manganese, and that’s about it,” Harmsen said. “This wasn’t out of one well field, this was kind of a mixture because we’re all tied together with our systems. We’ve got like four subsystems and they are interconnected.
Dave Harmsen, the operations supervisor at Lyon & Sioux Rural Water System in Rock Rapids, pours water into a cup for testing.
“I just went to one tap and took it. I can’t say it was Larchwood water or if it was Klondike water or if it was Doon water. It could have been a combination and that’s how well our water mixes together.”
Lyon & Sioux Rural Water System has nearly 2,000 members that receive its water. It has five treatment plants, 12 water towers, two standpipes and 760 miles of pipeline its water flows through.
The utility has been using the same water system since the company opened for business in 1974.
“We started with one treatment plant and now we have five,” Harmsen said.
The prices of the company’s water services is just right for customers too.
“It has something to do with the amount of water we sell,” Koel said. “The more you sell, the cheaper you can sell it, and so, compared to other systems that are more in urban areas, we do sell to a lot of livestock facilities. That’s why we sell a tremendous amount of water.”
She thinks people switch to them because the company simply has a better product.
“It’s the quality of the water,” Koel said. “Originally, everybody just had their own well and quite often the private wells would be contaminated, whether it be from field runoff or cattle runoff, and it wasn’t treated in any way.
“They started a system like this really to get safe water to all of the rural farms and it has just grown so much that the livestock has grown so much. Turns out now we’re feeding a lot more livestock than we are humans just because of the industry here in northwest Iowa.”
She is thrilled to not only have the best tasting water in the state, but winning awards like this does nothing but improve the business.
“We are always trying to put out the best water at the best rate,” Koel said. “We’re also a nonprofit corporation, so we do everything we can to keep rates low for the customers.”