After more than an hour of discussion — some of it very impassioned — Tuesday, the Boyne City City Commission voted 3-2 to discontinue adding fluoride to the city’s water supply.
Health concerns are what drove both sides of the debate.
… City water/wastewater superintendent Dan Meads … said the records on exactly when and how the city’s use of fluoride came about are a bit “murky.” According to documents Meads provided, it appears the practice started in 1973. He found evidence of an ordinance in which the city commission rejected its use in May of 1973 and then records of a vote in November of that same year when city voters approved a proposal to add it to the water by a vote of 295-148.
He noted that currently the city adds hydrofluosilicic acid to bring the concentration of fluoride in the city’s water supply to 0.7 parts per million. He also noted that the city’s water supply has a naturally-occurring level of fluoride in it, one well at 0.35 parts per million and the other at 0.15 parts per million.
He reported that that the city uses four to five drums of fluoride per year at a cost of $225 per drum. Adding in equipment and lab costs, he estimated it costs the city $2,500-$3,500 per year to fluoridate the city’s water supply…
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