Fluoride Action Network

Toowoomba: $4m cost to fluoridate city water

Source: The Toowoomba Chronicle | June 9th, 2009 | By Madeleine Logan
Location: Australia

IT would cost up to $4 million to fluoridate the entire Toowoomba city water supply, top council officials have revealed.

The State Government estimates about $200,000 would need to be spent on each of the city’s 16 bore water injection points to ensure the right dosage was added.

Water operations manager Alan Kleinschmidt said this figure did not include maintenance costs.

The Government has excused the council from adding fluoride to the city’s bore water supplies, because of its high cost and logistical near-impossibility.

“We have the most complex water system in Queensland, possibly Australia,” Mr Kleinschmidt said.

Fluoride will only be added to the Mt Kynoch water treatment plant.

That should come online by the end of this year.

The exemption means 75 per cent of houses will not receive properly fluoridated water.

The city’s 20 bores make up more than 30 per cent of the water supply.

People living in the CBD and older parts of Rangeville are serviced almost entirely by bore water, which is treated at the point the water is injected into the supply.

They will miss out on fluoride.

Residents in Wilsonton, Mt Kynoch and the area north of James Street and west of Mort Street should get the proper amount.

Everybody else will get a varying level of fluoride. It depends on how much bore water is being used.

This level varies daily, sometimes hourly.

The council had requested to be totally exempt from adding fluoride.

But this was rejected by the State Government, as were similar requests from Bundaberg and Cairns councils.