The Festival of Riverboatsbegins this week in Waterfront Park. And while there will both people and riverboats, something will be conspicuously missing: bottled water.This will be the first major event in the park that won’t allow bottled water sales. A few years ago, Louisville Waterfront Development Corp. officials approached the Louisville Water Co., said Ashley Smith of the WDC.“And we said, ‘we have this problem,’” Smith said. “‘We have all of these big events and we need to be able to get water to our folks that are attending the event. But we want to do a better job of being environmental stewards and not contributing to the problem with the proliferation of bottled water.’”The result was the system Louisville Water has been bringing to events for awhile. The company connects directly to a drinking water source and provides chilled water for free to people who bring their own containers.But the Festival of Riverboats marks the first time that Louisville Water has been the only source of water at an event. Outside vendors have been told they won’t be allowed to sell bottled water.For people who don’t bring a container, a reusable one will be for sale for $2, Smith said.“There are so many folks in Louisville who have become used to this process at our Waterfront Wednesday events. They bring their own bottles each time,” she said. “I imagine we’ll have a lot of those same folks who will come back to this event and already have their bottles in tow and they’re ready to go.”The Festival of Riverboats begins Tuesday and continues through Sunday.
