Group trying to stop fluoridated water in Portland

Published 4:24 pm Wednesday, August 22, 2012

PORTLAND — Opponents of a plan to add fluoride to Portland’s water supply are not waiting for the City Council to pass the proposal.

The group Oregon Citizens for Safe Drinking Water says it will ask voters in 2014 to ban fluoride from a water supply that serves about 900,000 residents in Portland, Gresham, Tigard and Tualatin.

Opponents must collect about 30,000 signatures from Portland voters to put the issue on the ballot.

“Based on the public outcry on this issue, I have no doubt that we will be able to collect enough signatures,” Kimberly Kaminski, the group’s executive director, told The Oregonian ahead of a Wednesday press conference to announce the initiative campaign.

According to language in Kaminski’s proposal, which has not been submitted to the city, the initiative would prohibit Portland from adding “any chemical or other substance … that is a by-product of any industrial or manufacturing process,” other than those that make water drinkable.

The initiative comes less than a week after a majority of the City Council announced its support for fluoridation, and elected officials have already received more than 2,000 phone calls and emails from supporters and opponents.

A public hearing has been scheduled for Sept. 6. The Council vote is six days later.

Portland is the second-largest city in the country without fluoride in its water, behind San Jose, Calif., according to the American Dental Association. The water district serving San Jose has voted to begin fluoridation, but money to do so hasn’t been raised.

Many in Portland and the state at large have long opposed public fluoridation, saying it’s unsafe and violates an individual’s right to consent to medication. While 73 percent of the U.S. population drinks water treated with fluoride, the rate is less than 25 percent in Oregon.

Portland voters have three times rejected fluoridation, most recently in 1980.

Mayor Sam Adams and two city commissioners have said they will support fluoridation, ensuring a majority on the five-member council.

Adams and Commissioner Randy Leonard say Oregon children have twice the rate of untreated tooth decay as those in Washington state, and the difference is that kids in Washington generally drink fluoridated water.

The Portland Water Bureau has estimated capital expenses for fluoridation at about $5 million.