“There wasn’t really much of a debate tonight,” said Sherry Bondy, moments after Essex town council voted against putting fluoride back in their drinking water.
It was a unanimous vote which differs from the stance of the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care and the Windsor-Essex County Health Unit — both cite fluoride as a safe and cost-effective measure to prevent oral disease.
“That’s not our municipal responsibility to put fluoride in the water. If the province wants to look at it, that’s a different game, different talk. But it’s not up to us,” Bondy said.
The Town of Essex currently gets its water from two sources:
- the Town of Amherstburg — which removed fluoride from its water in April 2011
- the Union Water Supply System — which has never fluoridated its water.
Bondy, who raised the motion, is concerned with the associated costs. She, along with every other councillor, said it’s not the town’s job to add fluoride to water.
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