Coastal people seek fluoride consultation

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By Mark Price on Wed, 12 Mar 2008
The Regions: North Otago | Your Town: Waitati

The fluoride debate is heating up in Dunedin's northern townships, just as construction of their new water supply gets under way.

The Dunedin City Council infrastructure services committee this week received a 231-name petition calling for consultation before fluoridated water was piped to townships along the Waikouaiti coast.

Petition organiser Olive McRae, of Waitati, presented the petition and said those who signed were ‘‘not too happy'' about the prospect of being supplied with ‘‘medicated'' water.

Water from the fluoridated supply of Dunedin city will be piped northwards in a new $9.3 million scheme that is replacing small, local, unfluoridated supplies.

Ms McRae said residents had not been consulted about the fluoridation issue. ‘‘We haven't been asked and we need to be asked.''

Committee chairman Cr Andrew Noone said information about the fluoridation of the new supply was in documents residents saw when being consulted about construction of the new scheme.

Ms McRae responded that fluoridation was mentioned only in ‘‘the small print''.

Supporting the petition, Evan Sadler questioned the effectiveness of fluoride.

‘‘People should have a choice in this,'' he said.

Ms McRae later told the Otago Daily Times, Petone had rejected taking fluoridated water from the Hutt supply after being consulted by the council.

She left councillors with a list of 34 questions about fluoride.

Waitati is due to get fluoridated city water in June or July, while Warrington and Seacliff are expected to be on tap by the end of the year.

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Fluoride Consultation

Submitted by Leonie on Wed, 28/05/2008 - 7:39pm.

As a member of the Working Party looking into the merits of updating local water supplies or getting water piped in from Dunedin, may I point out that the working party as well as the communities were in favour of upgrading local supplies and against the 'Big Pipe' bringing water from Dunedin. One of the reasons for not wanting Dunedin water is because it is fluoridated and that was made very clear at the meetings at which Cr Andrew Noone was present.
In fact it was noted in the 'Outcome from final meeting - 13th Dec. 2004' that "Some Working Party members do not like the idea of fluoridated water being supplied to the Northern Water Schemes area from Mt. Grand. They feel that Dunedin City Council should have another look at the relative merits of fluoride in water, or otherwise." (by Alasdair Morrison, Working Party Chairman)
So Cr Noone was well aware that the communities not only did not want the 'Big Pipe', they also were not happy about Fluoride in the water. And at the very least Cr Noone should support consultation now that the communities are about to get the water from Dunedin.

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