Yes, to fluoridation

To The Eagle,

When I first started work with the Town of Cathlamet in 1974, the Town had been fluoridating for about 10 years. At the time, I was a bit of a fluoride skeptic. One day, I asked my dentist in Longview what he thought about fluoridation. He replied that he could look in the mouth of a twelve year old and tell which city they lived in. Longview had been fluoridating for about 12 years, and Kelso was not.

Then there is Calgary and Edmonton, Alberta; both were fluoridating. For various reasons in 2011, Calgary stopped and, 10 years later, studies showed a significant degradation in the dental health of eight year olds in Calgary compared to Edmonton. Calgary voted by referendum in 2021 to reinstitute fluoridation. In June of 2025, Calgary’s water system resumed fluoridating.

Fluoride also provides benefits for older people in prevention of root decay, protection around crowns, and helps remineralize tooth enamel.

Systems that fluoridate are required by WDOH to maintain a fluoride concentration of 0.5ppm to 0.9ppm with 0.7ppm being optimum. Below 0.5ppm, little or no benefit is realized. Naturally occurring fluoride can be found in ground-water sources. Throughout the Columbia Plateau of south central Washington, it is found ranging from around 0.4ppm to 3.0ppm in public water supplies.

As to the cost, where there is already installed equipment in a water plant that requires daily attention, the cost is little more than the product being applied. I once attended a meeting where a representative from the Washington Dental Assoc. said that they had data indicating that the overall cost of fluoridation to be less than that of a toothbrush and a tube of tooth paste per person per year.

David Vik, the “water guy”

Puget Island