Residents deserve vote on fluoride issue

For those who read this paper regularly, you will likely remember reading an article on Sept.18 titled “City brushes aside fluoride challenge.” The City Council voted to retain the 50-plus year ordinance for water fluoridation.

In that article Mayor Gretchen Hellar stated if she was faced with a tie scenario, and she was, she would vote not to remove fluoride from the water, and to commit to those people who are anti-fluoride to work with the county clerk to come up with a proper referendum or initiative to force them to actually vote on the matter. So, she’s asking those of us who are against the ordinance to mount an effort to make them take a better look at our claim.

I think that is exactly what needs to happen. For one thing, there are a lot more people who live within the city limits (who were not at the meeting) that are aware of the same information presented. I think those people need to step up to the plate so, if this goes to the table again the numbers will be much larger. Hopefully some of you are reading this.

Second, there were some comments made on both sides about the naturally occurring fluoride in the water. They claimed (mostly the dentists) that it is safe and actually beneficial to teeth and bones etc. I’m inclined to believe there is probably some truth to that as long as we’re talking about the fluoride naturally present in the water.

The dentists claim that it needs to be added to the municipal water to bring it up to optimum levels. I assume, because those “optimum levels” are depleted in the city water somehow? They (the dentists) really didn’t say.

If we are to assume this is true, I’d  say we as citizens deserve full disclosure on exactly where this additive comes from, how it is treated, processed and added to the water. That was barely even touched on at the meeting (if at all).

Everything I have seen, heard and researched claims fluoride (as a water additive) comes from industrial waste facilities such as fertilizer plants and some studies claim it contains at least traces of aluminum-oxide. So, maybe the question of whether or not fluoride itself is healthy for human consumption is not the issue. That is why I believe we need full disclosure as to the origin and contents of this additive.

The supervisor of the Sandpoint Water Department told me that they use sodium silicofluoride that’s manufactured at a company called KC Industries in Florida. A salesman there told me that he’d submit my questions about the manufacturing process and contact information to one of their chemists and he’d get back to me. Thus far he hasn’t, but still, I’ve been able to find information that claims (and I quote) “The calcium fluoride present in nature is very different from the highly reactive inorganic man made sodium-silica-fluoride (Na2SiF6) added to public water.” 

BRAD WEBB

Sandpoint