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Lincoln County votes to stop injecting fluoride into county water systems
Summary
The Board voted unanimously to permanently discontinue adding fluoride to the county water system and to avoid upgrading or restarting the fluoridation system; county water serves approximately 30% of the county population, according to the motion.
At a regularly scheduled meeting, the Lincoln County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to permanently discontinue the injection of fluoride into county water systems and not to allocate funds to upgrade or restart any fluoridation equipment.
Commissioner Patton, who brought the matter back after it was tabled at a prior meeting, argued fluoride is widely available today through toothpaste, mouthwash and some bottled waters and said county funds should not be spent to continue or re-start the program. "I would make a motion that we permanently discontinue the use of fluoride in our county water," Patton said during the meeting; the board then voted to stop injection of fluoride and to not spend county funds on system upgrades.
The motion notes that county water serves roughly 30% of the county’s population. The board recorded the motion and approved it unanimously; the transcript does not record further details about implementation steps, notifications to affected utilities, or a formal timeline for removing or disabling existing equipment.
The board did not provide staff directives in the meeting record for the administrative steps that will follow implementation of the policy change; additional operational or engineering actions may be required and were not captured in the meeting minutes.
