The Fluoride Awareness Team of Kansas has wonderful news today. Tuesday, the citizens of McPherson, Kansas overwhelmingly voted NO on FLUORIDATION. In a city-wide election, the votes against Fluoridation were a whopping 2540 and only 598 votes in favor.
This is a prosperous community of approximately 13,000 people, but as is often the case, many others within the county would have been affected while not having had an opportunity to vote.
At nearly 81% against, we consider this a HUGE victory. All this despite generous grant offers from the United Methodist Health Ministry and repeated appearances by the KDA’s fluoridation guru, Greg Hill and the Health Department’s Martha Hagen. The UMHM had offered to pay 100% of the implementation and in a last ditch effort offered to cover all reasonable costs to “soften some of the water, …making it more soluable.” Since the Board of Public Utilities planned on using hydrofluosilicic acid in their 10 wells rather than sodium fluoride, this offer was off the mark. However, because the local water supply is “hard”, we were concerned that this might be miscontrued by the residents as an easy way to get softer tap water.
Fortunately in McPherson, we had some key points in our favor.
1) The McPherson Sentinel willingly published both sides of the issue, not only on the front page but also in letters to the editor.
2) The City Commission refused to vote in the Pro-F’s referendum (binding) petition, and instead chose to pass it on to a vote of the citizens. The Commission and BPU openly discussed their concerns about health and environmental risks, as well as increased labor and operating costs, and the wastefulness of treating the entire water supply only for most of it to go down the drain.
3) The Wastewater Treatment Facility announced that the city might end up having to install a system to remove fluoride from the wastewater supply before it is discharged into a nearby DRY stream. Regarded as the “fluoride bombshell”, this system could easily cost a million dollars or more. The Mayor noted that future State and EPA guidelines are likely to become more stringent, rather than more relaxed. Additionally and only a short distance away, a nearby refinery also dumps effluent into this same tributary at a rate of .9 to 1.9 milligrams of fluoride per liter.
FAT-KS Teammates from across the state pitched in to help the small, but active “McTEAM”. ‘Twas a valiant effort. Even though admittedly “preaching to the choir”, Wayne Logbeck of Hutchinson, drove to McPherson every Monday addressing the City Commission and attendees just so he could get some “INK” in the local paper. Of the locals involved, special thanks go to Marilyn Postier and Jack Madden who fought it again today, just as they did 33 years ago. I truly believe their past efforts were of great significance today.
As always, FAT-KS sincerely appreciates all the preceding groundwork, information and assistance we receive from all of the fellow fluoride fighters and experts world-wide. Our success is largely due to your continued efforts, THANK YOU.
WHAT A TEAM!
~Deanna Havens
Fluoride Awareness Team
http://fluorideawareness.cjb.net
Melody Scheel and Deanna Havens, Co-Founders
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