South Staffordshire Water Company the first water firm in the UK to provide fully fluoridated water - some honour!
Water fluoridation plant was another first for the area
THIS year marks 25 years since the water fluoridation plant at Fradley was switched on – the last of 26 across the area.The plant made South Staffordshire Water Company the first water firm in the UK to provide fully fluoridated water throughout its supply area.
The big switch-on – held on January 22, 1990 – was performed by Sir James Ackers, chairman of West Midlands Regional Health Authority which footed the £2.5m bill for the project.
Sir James said: "Water authorities have always been in health promotion since they first provided good water in Victorian times.
"The great thing about fluoridation is that the evidence about the benefit to teeth is incontrovertible. It is good for the population as a whole."
Margaret Stanhope, chairman of South East Staffordshire Health Authority, said at the time: "I am absolutely delighted. The original agreement with health authorities was signed in 1981 and I began to wonder if we should ever get fluoridation.
"Now it has arrived the benefits are going to be an enormous improvement in dental care."
At the opening, Tony Woodward, a water quality manager, told how the company developed a fluoride monitor to check safety.
He explained how a tanker containing 15-tonnes of acid would arrive at the plant and would go into a special area to prevent danger to public or the environment if there was spillage.
The acid would be diluted to a controllable level and the transfer into the water supply would happen only once in 24 hours so that the dose did not exceed the need.
South Staffordshire Water Company was working on fluoridation long time before the 1985 Act of Parliament gave it the go-ahead and its first plant opened only a month later.
Incontrovertible - really?
Comment
Useful bit of PR for South Staffs Water. But it doesn't alter the fact that they are dumping a class 2 toxic waste poison into our water. Toxic waste the manufacturers would find prohibitively expensive to otherwise dispose of - yet this way they turn it into a nice little earner! It's "commercial" grade - that means 2% arsenic, mercury, lead, heavy metals and other toxins. Copious research from all over the world shows the health hazards (tooth fluorosis, skeletal fluorosis, thyroid troubles, are just a very few of the better known affects) of dripping this waste sludge into our water. Has South Staffs teeth improved at all? Of course not! There are as many if not more dentists than ever. The only explanations possible for people doing this to our water are Criminal Greed, Insanity, total ignorance or Environmental Terrorism. Take your pick! Most other countries in the world don't do it. Israel has now banned it after stopping doing it. America - where it all started, with their vast industrial fluoride production whilst making the atomic bomb - now say it must be lowered to 0.7 parts per million (we suffer 1.0 ppm), that it is dangerous for bottle fed babies, and toothpaste with fluoride has a "poisons warning" on it by law. What on earth's the matter with this country? Turn off those fluoride taps - NOW!
posted by Bill at
9:19 AM
