TABLELANDS Regional Council is looking to sell fluoridation equipment worth thousands of dollars that was installed at its Kuranda and Malanda water treatment plants but never used.

Council was obliged to install the equipment under the then-Labor government’s Water Fluoridation Act, despite community outrage over the prospect of fluoridated drinking supplies.

Council delayed commissioning the plants until the Newman Government late last year gave councils the right not to fluoridate water supplies, an option TRC readily accepted.

That has left council with unused fluoridation equipment it no longer requires and the problem of how to dispose of it.

TRC Mayor Rosa Lee Long said council would wait for the result of the de-amalgamation referendum on March 9 before deciding on a method of disposal.

“We may look at dismantling some of that infrastructure if there are other shires looking to install fluoridation and who are looking for some of that material,” Cr Lee Long said.

Meanwhile, council is still in discussions with the State Government over payment for the equipment.

A report to councillors meeting in Atherton this week said the Malanda and Kuranda fluoridation plants exceeded the approved $1.617 million funding by the Queensland Fluoridation Capital Assistance Program (QFCAP) by $335,000.

“To date QFCAP has refused to increase the approved funding,” the report said.

It said QFCAP was yet to develop a process for winding up projects that were completed but not used.

The report said no funding agreements had been signed and no construction of fluoridation plants had taken place in Atherton or Mareeba.

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