SABATTUS – Fourth-grader Dayna Conant went with a big, smiling Earth and a peppy “Water is our world.”

Eighth-grader Miranda McDonald drew a giant toilet, outlined in red, and a slightly somber “Our future is in the toilet, literally.”

In Sabattus’ first storm-water management poster contest, kids were free to interpret clean water any way they wanted.

Both Conant and McDonald snagged second place.

Code Enforcement Officer Steve LeBrun announced the contest last fall, part of the town’s application process for a storm-water permit. A total of 156 students penned, colored and drew posters. LeBrun announced winners in the Sabattus Central School gym Wednesday.

It was difficult to pick them, he said.

“Some of them were funny; some of them were creative. Some of them were really, really good,” LeBrun said.

Town Office staff helped him break a few ties. There were multiple first, second and third places based on age group.

Alyssa Rouleau, an eighth-grade winner, used the slogan, “Use water like using money, save now for the future.” “Or else” is written on a whale’s tail. She said she saw a cartoon online and used that as inspiration.

“It basically showed what would happen if we never recycle,” said fifth-grade winner Nick Aripez.

In his poster, a big garbage chute ran from a nearby factory into a lake while waves of smell came off a garbage pile.

Using a similar theme, fifth-grader Ben Wilcox, a second-place winner, wrote, “Trash will get you back.”

“I came up with the idea of people dumping trash into a lake and polluting,” Wilcox said. “It took like three weeks to do.”

All winners received a ribbon. First-place winners and their teachers also got gift certificates to local businesses. Because of the strong response, LeBrun said he was already planning to do the contest next year.

All 156 posters are hanging at the Town Office.