Longview to continue adding fluoride to water; council nixes advisory vote

4-0 vote tables referendum that had been planned for November

This story has been updated to include new information about Utah’s ban on use of fluoride.

Fluoride will continue to be added to Longview water to fight tooth decay, at least for the foreseeable future.

On a 4-0 vote, the Longview City Council tabled its earlier call for a public advisory vote on removing fluoride from city drinking water. The vote means the matter is dead unless two council members agree to bring it back up for consideration.

Councilwomen Kalei LaFave, Ruth Kendall, Angie Wean and MaryAlice Wallis all voted to table the issue.

Councilman Erik Halvorson — who championed fluoride removal — abstained. Councilman Keith Young, who had sided with Halvorson previously, had an excused absence.

Mayor Spencer Boudreau did not vote, explaining afterward that the motion to table already had enlough votes to pass, so his vote would not have affected the outcome. He said he does not know if any council member will try to revive the effort.

Halvorson did not explain why he abstained. He did not immediately reply to my emailed request for comment Thursday night. He had contended that fluoride poses safety risks, and he shared libertarian objections to the government “medicating” water without individual consumers’ consent.

The vote was a victory for the local medical and dental communities, which had fought Halvorson’s effort and backed fluoride as a safe and effective way to fight tooth decay, especially in young, low-income children.

Halvorson’s effort, launched last summer, never mustered significant public support. Public sentiment in favor of fluoride was lopsided in both public meetings and correspondence to the city.

“It was truly a community effort, and I am pleased to have witnessed all the dentists, doctors, teachers, lawyers, students, past city workers and community members who shared our commitments to keeping our city water fluoridated,” Longview pediatrician Erin Harnish, who helped rally medical community support for fluoride, said in a prepared statement Thursday night.

Dean Takko, one of three supervisors of the Beacon Hill Water and Sewer District, said afterward that he was pleased with outcome. The district owns about 17% of the city’s Mint Farm Water Treatment Plant and would have to agree to any operational changes. The district’s supervisors earlier this month told city staff they wanted no part of the advisory vote and supported continued fluoride use. The district serves about 4,000 customers in the Beacon Hill, Lexington, Ostrander and Sunset Way/Columbia Heights areas.

“We — the city and the district — spent a lot of time on an answer in search of a problem,” Takko said after the council decision, echoing critics’ sentiment cited throughout this debate.

Takko, a former state legislator and former Cowlitz County assessor, told the council “so many people have told me” to continue fluoridating the water.

“Enough time and energy have been put into this. It’s time to put it to rest.”

He said it would cost the district at least $1 million for equipment to fluoridate its water if Longview had stopped doing so.

Beacon Hill’s support for fluoride may have been pivotal, but support for abandoning the advisory vote came with a surprise or two.

Randy Knox, the Cowlitz County Republican Party chairman, told the council it must honor the wishes of the public as expressed in hearings and comments. Knox was allied with Halvorson, Young and LaFave when the foursome ran for City Council in 2023. He’s lost to incumbent Councilwoman Ruth Kendall.

LaFave also broke from the conservative bloc on Thursday’s vote. On Feb. 27, she had voted with Halvorson, Young and Boudreau to call for a November public advisory vote — also known as a referendum —after sounding out Beacon Hill. She did not explain Thursday night why she backed off that position.

Councilwoman Wean cited “overwhelming and resounding” public support for fluoride and reminded the council that it is important to honor relationships with partners, such as Beacon Hill.

In rejecting a bid to defluoridate its water, Longview is breaking with a mini trend in Washington. The city of Camas is considering discontinuing fluoride use, and Aberdeen stopped adding it January.

Earlier on Thursday, Utah became the first state to ban the addition of fluoride to drinking water. Three other states are considering similar action.

However, Juneau, Alaska, and Calgary, Alberta, Canada, both are returning to fluoridation after tooth decay rose when they discontinued it.

Fluoride is a naturally occurring mineral used in the vast majority of U.S. public water systems to combat tooth decay for about three quarters of a century. Longview first began fluoridating its water in October 1951 and has used it without interruption since 1958.

High levels can be toxic, but humans need some amount of fluoride to have healthy teeth and bones. Longview’s well water naturally contains small amounts of the mineral, and the city adds some to bring concentrations up to 0.7 parts per million, the state standard.

Fluoride opponents got a political boost last year when a federal judge ordered the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to further regulate fluoride because high levels — more than twice the federally recommended level — could pose a risk to the intellectual development of children.

However, fluoride supporters say foreign studies that claimed to find a fluoride/IQ connection have been discredited.

They asserted that removing fluoride would disproportionately harm poor children, who have reduced access to dental care, and would discourage recruitment of dentists.

Before voting Thursday night, the council received one final admonition from Longview dentist Jeffrey Langdon, who practices in Rainier, which does not fluoridate its water.

“I did see a few children this week with ‘bottomed-out’ teeth,’ ” a condition in which teeth are decayed to the gum line. Langdon noted that there is a lot of sugar in the American diet, and fluoride helps ward off its corrosive impact.

“Fluoride really helps slow things down so we can manage (decay) and keep kids smiling. I would hate to see Longview be in the situation that Rainer is in currently. I’m the only (dentist) there that accepts Medicaid, and I’m slammed.”