The City of Saskatoon is temporarily suspending the addition of fluoride to its treated water.

The move is necessary during a construction project to upgrade the city’s water treatment plant, says Jeff Jorgenson, general manger of utility services for the City of Saskatoon. The upgrades include the installation of a new system that will add chemicals, including fluoride, to the water.

“We are very happy about this new system. It’s been a long time coming. It will be much more automated and it will give us better control with the chemical feed with more precision,” he said.

But in the meantime, the temporary system that is adding chemicals to the water as part of the treatment process doesn’t have the capacity to add all of the necessary chemicals as well as fluoride.

The city stopped adding fluoride at the beginning of March. It will be another couple of months before the new system is operating and fluoride is added to the water. But Jorgenson emphasizes that fluoride will be added again.

“I will always recommend to city council that we follow the recommendations of Health Canada and the Saskatoon Health Region to add fluoride at a level of 0.7 parts per million. That’s the level we have added to our drinking water for decades and we have full intent on continuing,” said Jorgenson.

The South Saskatchewan River has some naturally occurring fluoride at a level of 0.14 parts per million.

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