- Belmont city staff recommended that the council vote to stop treating city water with fluoride.
- The city council is considering the change due to the cost of the chemical and its corrosive nature, as well as the accessibility of fluoride through dental products.
- Some officials have expressed concerns about the potential impact on underprivileged children who may not have access to dental care.
Belmont leaders are on the fence about continuing the use of fluoride in the city’s water.
At a February meeting, city staff recommended that the council vote to stop treating city water with the chemical, a practice that started in 1971 nearly 10 years after the United States Public Health Service began recommending it to prevent tooth decay, according to city documents.
At the meeting, Belmont Public Works Director Jonathan Wilson mentioned several reasons for the recommendation.
He said the chemical is one of the most dangerous and corrosive at the plant, and the department finds itself buying a new $3,800 pump for the chemical every couple of years due to its corrosive nature.
It also costs thousands to buy the fluoride itself, he said.
City documents also mention studies and reports that they say have linked neurodevelopment and cognition concerns in children with exposure to high levels of fluoride.
Dental hygiene products with fluoride are also more widely accessible now, the documents added.
According to Wilson, the water department’s biggest concern at present is that they need an additional storage tank for Alum, and they have limited space. If the fluoride was gone, the space it previously occupied could be repurposed, he said.
Discussion
Alum is a coagulant that clumps together everything they need to remove from the water and settles it in the basin, according to Jennifer Gibson, the manager at the wastewater treatment plant.
“That is really the chemical that we need more of … the river is changing. The conditions are not getting better, they are getting worse. We are going to only be using more,” she said. “If we get storms and there’s a lot of stuff churned up, we have big rain events, we use a lot more Alum.”
Gibson added that sometimes following big rain events, the department orders Alum twice per month to meet the need.
Council asked whether the state or any formal agencies had conducted the research weighing the pros and cons of having fluoride in public water or if there were any official stances on the practice.
Gibson said she reached out to a state inspector to ask about the process of discontinuing the use of fluoride in water, and felt like he gave her some pushback on the idea.
Some individual officials still believe the practice was, “the best thing that was ever done,” she said. “It just depends on who you talk to.”
She and Wilson also added that residents with well water and residents of other areas where ground water is the main water source typically do not have fluoride added to their water.
“The only drawback I can think of is underprivileged kids that may not have access to dental care, and maybe, don’t get the products they need at home” Gibson said.
Decision
Ultimately, the council did not feel it had enough information available to vote on the issue.
“If the inspector from DEQ is saying no, or kind of pushing back a little bit, I would be curious to understand both sides,” Councilman Alex Szucs said at the meeting.
The council said it would prefer to hear from officials with the DEQ or Department of Health and Human Services ahead of making the decision.
The discussion was continued until staff returns with the requested information.
Surrounding city leaders
During the meeting, Wilson said leaders in the towns of Franklin and Sparta and in Union County, North Carolina, have moved away from the use of fluoride in public water.
Cherryville and Bessemer City also leave fluoride out of their drinking water.
Mount Holly, which also provides water to Stanley residents, does add fluoride to its water along with Two Rivers Utilities.
Two Rivers was created by the merging of Gastonia and Cramerton’s water services and provides water to both municipalities and several others in North and South Carolina.
Dentists
The American Dental Association provides information about water fluoridation on its website, where it calls the practice, “the single most effective public health measure to prevent tooth decay.”
It adds that, “The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has cited community water fluoridation as one of 10 great public health achievements of the 20th century.”
According to information from the ADA, water fluoridation is safe and healthy.
“Seventy years of research, thousands of studies and the experience of more than 210 million Americans tell us that water fluoridation is effective in preventing cavities and is safe for children and adults,” its website said.
Original article online at: https://www.gastongazette.com/story/news/local/2025/02/19/belmont-leaders-are-considering-removing-fluoride-from-city-water/78636334007/