The resort’s Municipal Utilities Authority will begin adding fluoride to the city’s water supply in February after years of its absence.

The authority’s installation of a new fluoridation system will allow fluoride to be put back into the city’s water after about five years without it, according to a news release from the authority.

The addition of fluoride to the water is believed to reduce tooth decay. The majority of municipal water supplies in the country have fluoridated water.

Atlantic City began fluoridating its water in 1952 after determining that fluoride was necessary to reduce tooth decay, and conducted a study on fluoride some 30 years later finding the same.

According to Neil Goldfine, executive director of the Municipal Utilities Authority, officials started planning to replace the old fluoridation system in 2002, considering changes in technology and safety. But after receiving proposals to replace the system, the costs were double what the agency had intended to spend.

The authority organized its own plans to install the equipment and spend only half of its original expectations and a quarter of what the outside proposals had offered. The inclusion of fluoride will begin Feb. 1 and will only affect water delivered within Atlantic City, Goldfine said in the release.

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