Newport Considering Adding Fluoride to Drinking Water
Newport is considering whether to treat drinking water with fluoride. The city’s old treatment plant used fluoride from the early 1960s to about 2005. The new plant completed in 2012 was built with a fluoridation system. Cost of adding the equipment is estimated at $300,000. (Photo by Larry Coonrod)
By Larry Coonrod
NEWPORT—After a decade pause, the City of Newport could resume adding fluoride to its treated drinking water.
Newport residents voted twice in favor of fluoridation. First in 1960 and then again in 1962. The city council both times passed resolutions affirming citizen’s desires. Newport fluoridated its water for more than 50 years, stopping in 2005 when city staff made an administrative decision to quit because the equipment “rotted out” from the corrosive effects of the chemical. The city dropped plans for a fluoride system in a new water plant completed in 2012 as a cost-saving measure.
Representatives with the Lincoln County Public Health Advisory Board in February asked City Manager Spencer Nebel to restart the fluoridation process.
“Fluoride helps strengthen and protect teeth from cavities, which is a number one health concern for kids, especially elementary age kids,” said Lincoln County Public Health Division Director Rebecca Austen.
Oregon Ranks 48th in Fluoridation
Fluoride is a naturally occurring mineral that occurs in water and some food. Health officials say it protects teeth from acids caused by sugar and refined carbohydrates.
U.S. cities began treating drinking water with fluoride in 1945. Today, about 67 percent of the population receives fluoridated water, according to a 2012 study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. The CDC goes as far as to call community water fluoridation “one of 10 great public health achievements of the 20th century.”
In that same 2012 study, Oregon ranks 48th, with only 23 percent of residents receiving fluoride treated water.
As near as records and local recollections can determine, no other Lincoln County city or water district ever used fluoride. Most cities contacted cited the cost of the equipment and installing it as a reason for not considering it.
“Our treatment is not set up for it,” said Lincoln City Public Works Director Lila Bradley, adding that water plant would need retrofitting in order to do fluoridation.
Controversial
The use of fluoride has been controversial in some areas. Opponents of the practice link it to brain damage, cancer, thyroid diseases and other ailments.
Austen, the public health director, dismisses those claims, saying they are based on misinformation and a discredited Chinese study of ultra-high concentrations of naturally occurring fluoride in water. At the levels recommended for water treatment (0.7 milligrams per liter) fluoride is safe and effective, she said.
“The low rates in drinking water have never been linked to any kind of health problems,” Austen said. “In public health, we are trying to make people healthier. We are not trying to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes. I would not be advocating for this if it were not healthy.”
After a scientific review, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services two years ago recommended lowering the maximum level of fluoride from 1.2 milligrams to 0.7 milligrams per liter.
The Fluoride Action Network calls the chemical “an outdated, unnecessary, and dangerous relic from a 1950s public health culture…”
“There is a lot of evidence now that fluoride in the water decreases IQ by 7.5 points,” said Roger Burt.
Burt served on Clean Water for Portland, a political action committee that led a successful ballot measure in 2013 to block the City of Portland from adding fluoride to its treatment system despite being outspent more than 3 to 1.
“Fluoride has also been declared a developmental neurotoxin by one of the world’s leading experts in environmental toxins and brain damage in The Lancet Neurology journal, one of the top journals,” Burt said.
Public Process
Cost a Consideration
Newport City Engineer Tim Gross estimated the cost of installing a fluoridation system in the water plant at $300,000. The fluorosilicic acid used in the process is very corrosive.
“The cost of the fluoridation system is basically the storage and scrubber units associated with managing that chemical,” Gross said.
Nebel, the city manager, said he plans to bring the issue to the city council at a yet to be determined meeting. Whatever the decision, Nebel says it will be made with plenty of public input.
“Part of the issue is really having discussions about whether this is something the community should be doing or not doing,” he said. “We’ll have discussions taking a look at it from a financial point as well as a public concern standpoint.”
Contact Reporter Larry Coonrod by emailing editor@lincolncountydispatch.com
