USA - OWASA Will Soon Reintroduce Fluoride Into Its Water Supply. Critics Say the Authority Is Unethically Acting Without Their Informed Consent.

Curtis Williams argues before the OWASA board against the reintroduction of flouride into Orange County's water supply.

Curtis Williams slowly steps up close to the microphone. Standing in front of the board of commissioners for Orange County's water authority, he's holding a faded red dictionary and a poster board on which he's drawn the cell structure of fluorine. Any dictionary, he says, will tell you what you need to know about the chemical. Tonight, he's reading from his favorite, American Heritage.

Be it nerves or a desired effect, Williams's words reverberate through the boardroom with sibilance and crackly feedback: "Highly corrosive. Highly poisonous."

Williams was one of thirteen people who stood before the Orange Water and Sewer Authority Thursday night to speak against adding fluoride to the water supply—in some ways a lost cause, given that the board made its decision on the matter more than six months ago. No one spoke for fluoridation, although the board has received comments touting the practice as a low-cost, low-risk way to prevent tooth decay among the masses.

And that's generally the position of the board. OWASA water has been fluoride-free since February, when the authority shut down its water plant after too much fluoride was pumped in and the system unrelatedly experienced a major water main break. In March, the board (with one nay vote from Yinka Ayankoya) decided to resume fluoridation once improvements were made at the plant. Last Thursday, chairman Robert Morgan said that work would likely be complete in the next week or so. (An announcement will be made before fluoridation resumes.)...........