Shenandoah was recently recognized for work at the city’s new water treatment plant.

At Tuesday night’s Shenandoah City Council meeting, officials with Delta Dental of Iowa presented the city a $25,000 check which will support fluoridation equipment at the water treatment plant that was installed earlier this year.

Shenandoah City Administrator Jim Davey tells KMA News the city is honored to receive the grant funds.

“With the building of this new water treatment facility, our fluoridation program has gone off the charts as far as the state of the art facility,” Davey said. “We have a separate room for our fluoride room. We were encouraged to apply for a $25,000 grant through Delta Dental. I sat down with water superintendent Kirk Kemper and we filled out all of the necessary paperwork. Ultimately, we did get accepted for the award.”

Suzanne Heckenlaible is the VP of Public Affairs for Delta Dental of Iowa, and was among the officials present at Tuesday night’s council meeting. She says community water fluoridation is one of the 10 greatest public health achievements of the 21st century.

“The fluoridation award is a collaborative partnership with the state of Iowa and Delta Dental of Iowa, with the Department of Public Health,” Heckenlaible said. “It ensures that we achieve optimal fluoridation in all of our water systems in Iowa. I’m pleased to announce that we are currently at 92 percent of our community water systems being fluoridated.”

Davey says the city actually received the grant money a few months ago, but weren’t able to coordinate a ceremony until Tuesday night’s meeting. State Senator Mark Costello was also in attendance to see Shenandoah get recognized by Delta Dental of Iowa.

*Original article online at http://www.kmaland.com/news/shenandoah-receives-award-for-new-water-treatment-plant/article_d12e50fa-b99e-11e7-b7aa-9b5512309c80.html

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