The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Tuesday's city council vote to end water fluoridation coincided with some surprising news. Municipal Administrator Mark Kolt revealed that the city's fluoride pump recently broke down, meaning the compound had not been added to the water for a few days. The city had been injecting 0.3 parts per million fluoride to bring levels up to the recommended target of 0.7 ppm. Local data But that was based on local data, since shown to be inaccurate, that the drinking water naturally contains about 0.4 ppm, not the range of less than 0.1 ppm to 0.2 ppm revealed by other tests. However, the city was not fixated solely on the 0.7 ppm target, instead aiming for the range of 0.5 ppm to 0.7 ppm favoured by a number of oral health experts. Thus it is not known for certain whether Flin Flonners were consuming water with recommended fluoride levels when they thought they were. Of course that question and the disrepair of the fluoride pump became moot points following the vote. 8/7/11
