USA - Fluoride still not done deal; city’s cost, total funding not certain

WILMINGTON — There’s no fluoride yet for the city of Wilmington’s water.

During Thursday night’s council meeting, the ordinance which mandated the fluoridation of the public water supplies for Wilmington was postponed to allow council members time to look at a draft report from Strand Engineers.

Council member and Water Committee Chairwoman Kelsey Swindler told those at council that the report in front of them was not a “solid estimate”, but instead an “opinion of probable cost.”

“They outlined three different options for the proposed fluoridation system. It was very clear in that meeting this morning that Jerry (Runk) and the service director that option three would be the best one,” said Swindler.

Alternative 3, as it is labeled, says that the probable cost would be $315,200, with annual operation cost being $11,000. The report says that this option “has the flat slab, double walled tanks, exterior fill station, and case of operation as Alternative No. 1.”

It also says that the building can be smaller without the circulation pump and that there will be one less piece of equipment to maintain. It stated that the HFS chemical would only be “injected into the Clearwells with only the chemical metering pump installed.”

Outside of discussing the report and probable costs, there was also discussion as to how these would be funded.

Swindler told council that it’s disappointing that the Ohio Department of Health has “insubstantial funds” to help, according to her.

“We’ve been assured throughout this process that they would like to help and their plan is to fund start-up fluoridation communities who are doing it for the first time, and would fund for up to 100 percent,” said Swindler.

She said that the engineers were also disappointed by the di