{"id":24876,"date":"2024-11-09T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-11-09T23:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/some-residents-want-end-to-durangos-fluoridation-of-drinking-water\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T05:03:44","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T05:03:44","slug":"some-residents-want-end-to-durangos-fluoridation-of-drinking-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/some-residents-want-end-to-durangos-fluoridation-of-drinking-water\/","title":{"rendered":"Some residents want end to Durango\u2019s fluoridation of drinking water"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"An
An operator at the Durango Water Treatment Plant pours granular sodium fluoride into the hopper of a volumetric feeder in 2015. Durango-area residents once again took to City Council to express public health concerns about water fluoridation in the city\u2019s drinking water, despite the issue being soundly defeated in a local election in 2017 and decades of research on the safety and risks of water fluoridation. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file)<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

In response to emails from Durango-area residents concerned about water fluoridation in the city\u2019s water, the city of Durango invited the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment to establish the facts.<\/p>\n

Fluoride, a natural mineral used in toothpaste, has also been used in public drinking water for at least 79 years. Now, it\u2019s fallen under fresh scrutiny by a California district court, politicians and activist groups across the country.<\/p>\n

Residents who attended a City Council meeting on Nov. 5 cited a Northern District of California judge\u2019s ruling in September that the optimal level of fluoride in public drinking water \u201cposes an unreasonable risk of reduced IQ in children.\u201d The judge ordered the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to create a regulatory response, although the required response was not defined.<\/p>\n

City Attorney Mark Morgan said the single district court ruling will almost certainly go through an extensive appeals process.<\/p>\n

According to the CDPHE, fluoride is a naturally occurring mineral found in nearly all water sources that is added to drinking water to protect teeth. It\u2019s comparable to other healthy nutrients such as calcium in milk to protect bones, folate added to orange juice to prevent birth defects and iodine added to salt to protect thyroids.<\/p>\n

Fluoride has been studied meticulously since 1945, and water fluoridation\u2019s purpose is to prevent tooth decay. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention credits the ingenuity as one of the 10 greatest public health interventions of the 20th century because of the decline in cavities since its implementation.<\/p>\n

But residents who spoke at the City Council meeting Nov. 5 were concerned that water fluoridation poses a significant risk to public health.<\/p>\n

Those who spoke during a public comment period didn\u2019t explicitly ask City Council to take action, but city spokesman Tom Sluis said emails from residents made it clear concerned residents want the city to cease putting fluoride in its water.<\/p>\n

\"Durango-area
Durango-area residents went to Durango City Council on Nov. 5 to speak for and against continued fluoridation of the city\u2019s drinking water. Those who want to bring an end to the practice said fluoride threatens children\u2019s intelligence and poses other public health risks, while proponents of water fluoridation said the practice is well researched and completely safe at optimal levels of 0.7 mg per liter. (Christian Burney\/Durango Herald)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>
Residents worry water fluoridation decreases children\u2019s intelligence quotients<\/div>\n

Resident James Forleo said the California district court\u2019s ruling is \u201chistoric.\u201d<\/p>\n

He noted the ruling doesn\u2019t specify how the EPA must respond, but said the judge\u2019s order makes clear the federal agency cannot ignore it and is obligated to respond.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are affecting children\u2019s brains and we can\u2019t ignore that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Other residents pointed to skull-and-crossbones markings on fluoride bags or containers stored at Durango\u2019s water treatment plant as evidence fluoride is a dangerous substance.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast time I inspected the palette of sodium fluoride bags up at the water treatment plant, the city of Durango was using a toxic sodium fluoride that is sourced from China,\u201d resident Adam Howell said. \u201cOn the front of the bags of this powdery drug is the image of a skull and crossbones with the word \u2018Toxic\u2019 written underneath it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said local, state and federal governments are in cahoots with \u201cspecial interests\u201d to force water fluoridation upon the public as a medical treatment, and the conspiracy must come to an end.<\/p>\n

He added powdered sodium fluoride is available for purchase on the internet if people want to treat their own drinking water.<\/p>\n

La Plata County resident Katrina Blair said she acknowledges fluoride is an ingredient in household toothpastes, but she is worried fluoride used in water fluoridation is an industry byproduct of pesticides, aluminum and fertilizer and that it contains arsenic and lead.<\/p>\n

She said fluoride may or may not protect teeth, but there is a lot of research on \u201cboth sides\u201d and propaganda that people have to weed through.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s pretty easy to make sure our kids are getting a good source of it,\u201d she said, referencing toothpaste. \u201cBut to put it in everyone\u2019s water and to medicate everyone, that doesn\u2019t feel correct.\u201d<\/p>\n

The concerns mounted at City Council just days after Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent anti-vaccine activist and president-elect Donald Trump\u2019s apparent pick for secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, said Trump would look to remove fluoride from public drinking water<\/a> on his first day in office, The Associated Press reported.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn Jan. 20, the Trump White House will advise all U.S. water systems to remove fluoride from public water,\u201d Kennedy said.<\/p>\n

In an interview with NPR, Kennedy said fluoride made sense in the 1940s, but now it\u2019s in toothpaste and unneeded in drinking water, adding that water is \u201ca very bad way to deliver it because it\u2019s delivered through the blood system.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Some
Some Durango-area residents are asking the city of Durango to stop fluoridating its drinking water, citing a District Court of Northern California\u2019s ruling in September that water fluoridation \u201cposes an unreasonable risk of reduced IQ in children\u201d and ordering the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to create a regulatory response that was not defined. (Jim Cole\/Associated Press file)<\/span>dur-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>
Experts say safe levels of fluoride prevent cavities<\/div>\n

Not everyone who spoke at the meeting was against fluoride.<\/p>\n

Angela Pinkerton, a Durango pediatric dentist and regional authority on childhood cavities, said Durango is without question more protected than surrounding non-fluoridated counties.<\/p>\n

She said her most significant patients who require a high order of care in a hospital setting are typically under 4 years old.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have more than half of their teeth decayed or have to be extracted from decay, and approximately 75% of that population is residing in a non-fluoridated area,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She said the study about water fluoridation and lower IQ referenced by the California district court does not apply to the city of Durango. Fluoride levels above 1.5 mg, double the levels used in Durango water, are toxic, but the city monitors water fluoridation to prevent overexposure.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe results of this study are weak and they provide little insight into the correlation with the fluoride and the IQ, admittedly, because the studies compared were dissimilar to small sample sizes and were not biologically plausible,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She also said Durango School District 9-R students are meeting and exceeding state academic performance standards.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat supports that we are not experiencing a global cognitive deficit related to our community fluoridation exposure,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Durango High School students graduated at a rate of 95% in the 2023-24 school year. Superintendent Karen Cheser said the district\u2019s Colorado Measures of Academic Success scores continue to rank in the top 20% in the state<\/a>.<\/p>\n

CDPHE State Dental Director Dr. Maryam Mahmood attended the meeting to address the California court ruling and misinformation about fluoride. She was joined by Courtney Justice, La Plata County Public Health Department regional oral health specialist and a registered dental hygienist, who spoke to the benefits of water fluoridation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWater fluoridation is a public health intervention that\u2019s been studied thousands of times in peer-reviewed journals,\u201d Mahmood said. \u201cAt optimal levels, it presents no measurable risk to human health, cognition or child development.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said the District Court of Northern California\u2019s ruling is at odds with well established scientific evidence, and the National Toxicology Program report cited in the court ruling itself explicitly says there is not enough evidence to determine if optimal water fluoridation levels \u2013 0.7 mg per liter, equivalent to one drop in 16 gallons of water \u2013 has a negative effect on children\u2019s IQ.<\/p>\n

The NTP report itself says its finding should not be applied to public policy regarding fluoride in drinking water, a point the California district judge apparently ignored.<\/p>\n

Justice said she facilitates a school-based oral health program across La Plata, Archuleta, Dolores, Montezuma and San Juan counties. In 2023, she saw 610 students across the school year.<\/p>\n

She developed a study to analyze oral health data of students to understand how prominent dental disease is among them. In La Plata County, data shows the further away a school is from a central water system using water fluoridation, the more cavities there are among students at the school.<\/p>\n

A data map for La Plata County shows 50% of students seen by Justice at Sunnyside Elementary School, located just north of County Road 218 about 11 miles south of Durango, had active dental disease, whereas only 23% of students seen by Justice at Park Elementary School at 510 East Sixth Ave. in Durango had dental disease.<\/p>\n

Tuesday was not the first time residents have rallied against fluoride in Durango\u2019s public drinking water. In April 2017, the issue was put to voters<\/a>, who roundly decided to continue water fluoridation.<\/p>\n

The Durango Herald<\/em> reported then that 3,094 voters supported keeping the system in place, while 1,735 voters supported an ordinance that would require the city to stop fluoridating its water.<\/p>\n

Those opposing fluoride raised about $4,500 for their campaign, while fluoride supporters raised nearly $22,500, largely from Denver-based nonprofit Healthier Colorado, which the former group attributed to big money interests.<\/p>\n

cburney@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

experts defend nearly 80-year practice<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24877,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[2375,950,1030,28,668,295],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-24876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado-department-of-public-health-and-environment","tag-durango","tag-environment","tag-headlines","tag-public-health","tag-water"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24876"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24876\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78711,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24876\/revisions\/78711"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24876"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=24876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}