Darren Coyne
Ballina Shire Council and Rous Water spent almost half a million dollars defending the decision to fluoridate local water supplies.
In a report to Ballina council recently, councillors were told $170,000 had been spent defending a challenge from environmental activist Al Oshlack.
It’s understood Mr Oshlack has agreed to repay $30,000.
Meanwhile, Rous Water general manager Kyme Lavelle told Echonetdaily that it was “fair to say our costs were higher than that”.
‘Our costs in the NSW Land and Environment Court were in excess of $220,000 and we are negotiating with Mr Oshlack for recovery of monies,’ he said.
Rous Water recently awarded a contract worth almost $3 million to Aquatech Maxcon Pty Ltd for the construction of four dosing plants.
They will be located at Durroughby, Corndale, Clunes and Knockrow, and will fluoridate the supply to most water customers in the Ballina, Lismore and Richmond Valley council areas.
Ballina council is constructing a plant at Marom Creek to supply fluoridated water to Wardell residents. It is expected to be finished this year.
As a result of a decision by Byron shire council, fluoridated water will not be supplied to Byron residents, although the council is still expected to contribute to ongoing maintenance costs, as it is a member of Rous Water.
‘Byron is still responsible for some costs,” Mr Lavelle said.
‘’The other communities have to wear the costs of four dosing plants because if Byron was in it it would have only been two dosing plants.’
Nimbin will also escapes fluoridation as it has its own water supply, while Casino is already supplied with fluoridated water.
Rous Water technical services manager Wayne Franklin said it was expected that the four dosing plants would be operational by Easter next year.
‘Rous awarded the contract about six weeks so they are well into the design phase. The contractors are expected to start building before Christmas,’ Mr Franklin said.
Once the dosing plants are operating, it’s expected that the ongoing costs of fluoridating the water will be around $300,000 each year.
Neither Ballina nor Rous Water received money from the state government to defend the legal challenge against the decision to fluoridate the water supply.
Thanks Al for trying to look after our interests.
Councils with un-fluoridated water supplies provide free tablets for children in the age group fluoride benefits.
Young children drink more milk and juice than water, older people drink more tea and coffee.
Fluoride is a poison that should have dose control.
Fluoride may be good for young teeth but it is not good for skin or old bones.
Fish, crustaceans and aquatic vegetation certainly don’t need fluoride.
Pity our Councils spent 1/2 a million in court forcing this expensive mining bi-product onto us and our environment!
How about the on going yearly cost of purchasing the toxic waste product (flouride) from the Chinese Aluminium factories. That they would have otherwise had to dispose of at great expense. We actually purchase it from them and medicate the population.
I am so angry that I am being forced to drink this poison, what kind of country am I living in that forces me to get an overload of fluoride. I like to drink 8 glasses of water each day, my food will be watered with fluoridated water, I will be bathing in it, and rather than doing me any good it is harming me. Shame on you Ballina Councillors who voted for this toxic waste to enter our water supply. Who do you think you are to force this on me??
The following are some good sources of information on fluoride and artificial water fluoridation: the Fluoride Action Network, Declan Waugh’s work, the books The Case Against Fluoride and The Fluoride Deception, the 2006 US National Research Council report Fluoride in Drinking Water: A Scientific Review of EPA’s Standards, and the peer-reviewed journal Fluoride.
https://www.facebook.com/FluorideActionNetwork
http://www.fluoridealert.org/
http://ffwireland.blogspot.com.au/
http://www.enviro.ie/downloads.html
http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11571
http://www.fluorideresearch.org/
The forced-fluoridation experiment is medical malpractice on an industrial scale. Fluoridation chemicals are the only medications which are delivered via public water supplies. Medicating public water supplies with any chemical violates the human rights and medical ethics principle of informed consent to medical intervention, is entirely indiscriminate, results in the random dosing of residents since the fluoride dose received from water and other sources is uncontrolled, and is environmentally irresponsible because the vast majority of tap water is not ingested, so the environmental load is vastly greater than it needs to be. Medicating public water supplies means that politicians are subjecting everyone to treatment which no doctor can legally impose on anyone, and is surely the most ham-fisted method of drug delivery ever devised.
Medicating public water supplies with fluoridation chemicals is especially egregious, because fluoride is a cumulative poison with a half life in the body of around 20 years, there was no good quality scientific research which indicated that forced-fluoridation was anything but harmful and useless in the 1940s and there still isn’t any, the best quality scientific research which has been conducted indicates that forced-fluoridation is in fact both harmful and useless, the fluoridation chemicals which are used are industrial grade rather than pharmaceutical grade, and fluoride is not biodegradable. The forced-fluoridation experiment is unethical, illegal, irrational, archaic, pseudoscientific, and all risk, no reward.
As a former city councilwoman, I was instrumental in investigating my constituents complaints about the harmfulness of water fluoridation. As a result I helped in getting an initiative to the ballot and we successfully voted in a moratorium on Nov 6, ’12 to turn off the toxic industrial waste fluoride (HYDROFLUSOLICIC ACID OR HFSA) because our supplier UNIVAR, (formerly Basic Chemical Solutions) would not provide three things:
1.) Toxicological report
2.) Listing of contaminants
3.) Proof that their product was safe for all water consumers, infants to seniors.
This absurd practice of adding HFSA is based more on politics than science. Why should a water department be given the power to medicate anyone when they don’t take a health history, they don’t pass out a listing of side effects or monitor the dose. This is tantamount to gross negligence. Water consumers started to send in their payment UNDER PROTEST so that when the class action lawsuits began they would be covered.
After adding water fluoridation for 44 years, our town had 70% cavities in our children’s teeth,(this figure was quoted from Dr. Susan Wellman, dentist who is pro-fluoride) high obesity rates and low test scores. Hardly an endorsement for continuing this unethical practice. We were also ranked 34th in the nation for cancer while Brookings, Oregon….. just 25 minutes north of us…. was ranked 765th in the nation for cancer for the same time period and Bookings never fluoridated their water.
We have high rates of not only cancer, but thyroid, diabetes and kidney disease all with links to HFSA. One constituent ended up in ER with seizures after showering for 10 minutes. Her doctor has subsequently written a letter describing her allergic reaction to water fluoridation. She was on a medication which contained fluoride and that in combination with absorbing this poison transdermaly by showering put her in the Emergency Room.
New Hampshire Governor Lynch signed into law on Aug 4, 2012 infant warnings concerning mixing fluoridated water with formula because of the high prevalence of fluorosis. Fluorosis is the first visible sign of fluoride poisoning. Our Environmental Protection Agency announced in early 2011 that 41% of our nations teenagers had fluorosis and recommended cutting the parts per million down to .7. Our city council reduced the ppm from 1.2 to .7. That was a step in the right direction but not nearly enough because our EPA is doing nothing to really test or protect the public from this toxic industrial waste product. The only safe level when considering the addition of HFSA to drinking/bathing water is ZERO.
If you happen to call the NSF (which is not a government agency) and ask them questions about the testing they do on HFSA, they will tell you that they won’t provide that information because of non-disclosure agreements. If you call the manufacturer, distributor or supplier, they will not provide information about the 3 requested docs listed in my opening paragraph above as I already did that back in 2011. I sent out over 40 letters and got zero responses.
I predict that water fluoridation will become one of the biggest frauds and scams ever perpetrated against the public in the 20th and 21st century. That phrase often quoted by the CDC as being one of the best things since sliced bread was made up by a Public Relations guy. It’s time to stop quoting that drivel. Water fluoridation will be compared to Tobacco science, DDT science, Asbestos science, Thalidomide science, etc.
It is my opinion based on the research I’ve done which has been extensive these last 5 years, that it’s all about the money. Some brilliant schemers came up with this idea to get rid of toxic industrial waste by saying it was good for children’s teeth. That’s a bunch of baloney. It’s good for the bank accounts of the producers of HFSA because if they had to get rid of their toxic industrial waste legally, it would cost them hundreds of millions of dollars. Instead they dupe the politicians with fraudulent science and endorsements which is not science and sell them a product in which humans are utilized to filter this poison through their bodies while 99% goes down the drain. The dumb politicians buy it hook, line and sinker and shut their brains down. They become incapable of independent thought as I witnessed first hand with my fellow council members and other councils I’ve visited. But the HFSA manufacturers, suppliers and distributors are laughing all the way to the bank because they’ve got these municipalities paying them for poison. Plus, I checked out our retirement accounts and lo and behold, the MOSAIC company is one of the funds city employees can invest their retirement money in. Again, as I said, brilliant scheme from start to finish. I just hope to see the day that some of them end up in prison.
But here’s the part they don’t tell you. In 2011, our city finished a $43.8 million upgrade/expansion on our waste water treatment plant with state-of-the-art technology that utilizes MBR or Membrane Bio-Reactor technology. When I asked our Public Works Director if this gets the fluoride out of the water, he replied, “NO.” So this poison is going into our Pacific Ocean.
Poison the public. Poison the oceans. Poison the food and beverages. Because of that, we are all already over-fluoridated.
Please do your homework.
Respectfully,
Donna A. Westfall
937 J St.
Crescent City, Calif.95531
(707) 951-3650
Actually the opposite is true. It is politics who is reigning supreme in Byron and Nimbin and the science is ignored. Fluoridation is added at safe dose for everyone. It helps reduce dental caries. And the only negative side effects any reputable study has found is dental fluorosis which is a cosmetic concern and has no health implications. All the other studies and websites you reading are unscientific, unreproducible and deceitful. But this isn’t about logic and evidence. It’s about anecdotal, Today Tonight and Current Affairs style knowledge, that feels true.
At least not drinking fluoride makes the dentists in your community have more work 🙂
You have no idea of what you’re talking about. The fluoride concentrations in bone required to cause skeletal fluorosis are known, the average rate of fluoride retention in bone is known, and the range of fluoride exposure in people subjected to forced-fluoridation is known (approximately in all three cases), so it is quite a simple matter to do the calculation and figure out that forced-fluoridation does in fact cause skeletal fluorosis. In contrast, there is no credible evidence of any benefit. Dentists make money from poisoning children, because forced-fluoridation does little or nothing to prevent dental caries, while greatly increasing rates of dental fluorosis, which is expensive to cosmetically treat. Claiming that forced-fluoridation is logical is truly bizarre. Using public water supplies to deliver medication is highly irrational, for reasons which should be obvious.
Many people in our very humid areas drink huge amounts – but many people don’t think, it’s not just via our taps that we are forced to consume ‘fluoridated (haz waste polluted) water’ that we are drinking, it’s everything – our soft drinks, fruit juices, beers, everything we drink and everything we eat (and we have to bathe in it) has a dose of POISON ie ‘fluoridated water = which comes from the dumping/disposal of hazardous waste pollutants from phosphate fertilizer industries (aka ‘water fluoridation chemicals’) hexafluorosilicic acid/silicofluorides and co-contaminants of lead, mercury, arsenic, cadmium, thallium, berrylium, etc., (known as water fluoridation – also added to that haz waste soup is aluminium sulphate); into our drinking water supplies and hence also the contamination of our food chain and using the populations` kidneys as hazardous waste disposal/filtration units.
Also note, boiling the water ‘concentrates’ this poison/hazardous waste known as ‘fluoride’.
Unfortunately for our population, our Authorities, dentists, doctors and ors. and their interests (it is alleged) are recklessly negligent in their `belief` (and the forcing of it on us all) in water fluoridation/pollution. It is only their political power and media power and also the ‘corporate sponsorships’ etc., of dental schools at Universities that keeps these dangerously corrosive hazardous waste pollutants hexafluorosilicic acid/silicofluorides and co-contaminants of lead, mercury, arsenic, cadmium, thallium, berrylium etc., known as `water fluoridation` polluting our water supplies (and hence our food chain). (Also added to that hazardous waste soup is aluminium sulphate).
Australia wide in dental crisis after widespread fluoridation in every State, first commencing Beaconsfield, Tasmania in 1953 = likewise USA in dental crisis after widespread ‘fluoridation’ first beginning in 1945 Grand Rapids Michigan.
The only answer EVER was to provide access to affordable dental health care services for all the population, not the dumping/disposal of hazardous waste pollutants fluorosilicic acid/silicofluorides and co-contaminants of lead, mercury, arsenic, cadmium, thallium, berrylium, etc., (known as water fluoridation); into our drinking water supplies and hence also the contamination of our food chain and using the populations` kidneys as hazardous waste disposal/filtration units.
This hazardous waste and co-contaminants from phosphate fertiliser industries’, must not be dumped in the air, rivers, oceans, creeks but dump it in the water supplies as a ‘medical /dental treatment’ (WITHOUT INFORMED CONSENT I MIGHT ADD !! ) and it magically becomes safe and effective.
What are the Long-Term effects of ingesting fluoride on our bones?
Fluoride is a bioaccumulator and is toxic to bones
How much evidence must accumulate before authorities here acknowledge what many foreign scientists have already done years ago — fluoride is one of the most bone-seeking elements known to man and long-term ingestion is toxic to bones even in the so-called “low” doses.
Extensive information: http://fluoridation.com/bones.htm
~~
Articles by Dr. John R. Lee, M.D.
Fluoride in drinking water and risk of hip fracture in the UK: a case-control study
Fluoridation and Osteoporosis 1992
Slow-Release Sodium Fluoride in the Management of Postmenopausal Osteoporosis
Fluoridation and Hip Fracture
Proponent and Opponent discussing fluoride supplements.
Fluoride Exposure and Childhood Osteosarcoma: A case-control study
Extensive Information: http://fluoridation.com/lee-jr.htm#Fluoridation%20and%20Hip%20FractureNRC
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THE ARTHRITIS TRUST OF AMERICA ON “FLUORIDE”
FLUORIDATION: GOVERNMENTALLY APPROVED POISON THE RHEUMATOID DISEASE FOUNDATION The City Commissioners turned to me, and asked my opinion. Being somewhat naive and sans research, I agreed with the nurse, and so together we naively, innocently, and stupidly added fluoride to the City of Fairview’s (Tennessee) water supply, and that addition continues to this date, despite the fact that the citizens of the City of Fairview, TN have never had an opportunity to know the pros and cons of fluoridation or to vote for or against the issue. We unknowingly doomed hundreds of Fairview citizens to Arthrosis, vertebral and hip fracture, osteosarcoma (cancer), infertility, birth defects, bone damage, damage to the immune system, fluorosis, fluoride neurotoxicity, and many other poorly diagnosed conditions, as fluoride affects every human system, often by inhibiting enzymes which are essential for the functioning of every human system. Besides the damaging of human tissue by 1 ppm of fluoride added to our public water systems, the health problem is also one of massive over-consumption of fluoride. We are being bombarded with fluoride from all our dental products and also many industrial sources.
http://www.arthritistrust.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Fluoride.pdf
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Brief Primer: on water fluoridation/pollution – Diane Drayton Buckland – 8 Oct. 2013 http://fluorideinformationaustralia.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/a-brief-primer-on-water-fluoridation_pollution-diane-drayton-buckland-8-oct-2013.pdf
Website: http://fluorideinformationaustralia.wordpress.com/fia-report-archives/
Dr. Robert Gammal BDS
To Fluoridate or Not
an ethical and health issue which affects everyone’s health
A Submission to Councils, Health Departments and People
October, 2013
http://www.robertgammal.com/PDFs/To%20Fluoridate%20or%20Not%207.pdf
FLUORIDE DOES NOT ELIMINATE TOOTH DECAY – Slash stealth sugar intake, dental patients urged
12th Dec 2013
Halving patients’ daily sugar intake could diminish the risk of tooth decay Irish dentists have to face, a study has found.
Scientists have suggested that restricting the recommended threshold for ‘free sugars’ to around five teaspoons a day could minimise the risk of dental cavities.
Free sugars are those added to foods by manufacturers, cooks or consumers; plus those naturally abiding in honey, syrup, fruit juices and fruit concentrates.
Levels of tooth decay are much lower in diets where less than 10% of the calorie intake comes from free sugars, according to research carried out for the World Health Organisation (WHO) by Newcastle in the UK. The study also found that fluoride does not eliminate tooth decay, citing dietary sugars as the primary cause. People living in areas with fluoridated water and/or using fluoride toothpaste still got dental caries.
The Newcastle University study considered the overall quality of evidence by examining consistency of results across the available studies, the size of effect, evidence of a dose response and the strength of association.
Professor Paula Moynihan, professor of nutrition and oral health at Newcastle University, said: ‘In the past, judgements on recommended levels of free sugars intake were made based on levels associated with an average of three or fewer decayed teeth in 12 year olds.
‘Part of the problem is that sugary foods and drinks are now staples in many people’s diet in industrialised countries, whereas once they were an occasional treat for a birthday or Christmas.
‘The public need better information on the health risks of sugary foods and drinks and there needs to be clearer information on the levels of sugars in our foods and drinks.’
Researchers examined 55 oral health studies dating back to the 1950s. The study was published in the Journal of Dental Research.
http://www.irishdentist.ie/news/news_detail.php?id=5436
After being very concerned (and consuming fluoridated water in Sydney for 25 years) I have carried out the research for quite a few years and accumulated a lot of the available science (and pseudo science) that is out there, and have come to the conclusion that fluoridated water is not only safe, it is one of the best public health initiatives and a sign of a very mature public health system. Why on earth would the government be trying to poison us? These sort of public health initiatives are designed to reduce public health costs, not increase them. Shame on Oshlack for flogging a dead horse on a complete waste of time and public money.
That previous post “FLUORIDE DOES NOT ELIMINATE TOOTH DECAY” is another classic example of complete misuse of research and anti-fluoride FUD. Of course Fluoride does not ELIMINATE tooth decay – Fluoride is an important part of a complete and mature approach to dental health – you can’t sit there banging away on sugary soda drinks all day and expect the Fluoride in the water to compensate for it. Fluoridated water, combined with a regular cleaning regime and a sensible approach to what you put in your mouth will give you the greatest chance of avoiding tooth decay.