Update: Water district rejects Longview council request to join fluoride referendum

Action by Beacon Hill Water & Sewer District supervisors a setback to defluoridation proposal, but the issue is not dead yet

This is an expanded version of a story that ran earlier Tuesday evening. It was also updated Wednesday morning to include a detail about the possible advisor vote (see italics).

A controversial effort to remove fluoride from Longview drinking water got a setback Tuesday.

The three supervisors of the Beacon Hill Water & Sewer District rejected Longview’s request that the district participate in a fluoride public advisory vote that the Longview City Council may hold in November.

The district owns about a 17% share of Longview’s Mint Farm Water Treatment Plant and thus must agree to any changes in operations. The district delivers water to about 4,000 customers, most of them in Lexington, Beacon Hill and unincorporated parts of the Columbia Heights and Sunset areas north of Longview.

Supervisors Monte Roden and Dean Takko said they were sending a strong message to the Longview City Council that the district has no interest in removing fluoride from drinking water. They were joined by supervisor Rick Ames, who participated in the meeting remotely.

“I think everyone knows where we stand,” Takko said.

Longview City Councilman Erik Halvorson, the council’s chief proponent of fluoride removal, declined comment following the board of supervisors meeting at its Lexington headquarters.

I could not immediately reach other city council members for comment Tuesday evening.

What happens next is uncertain. At its first meeting in April, the City Council could go ahead with the referendum in Longview alone, drop the entire matter, or simply vote to discontinue fluoride use.

The council would not be bound by the results of any referendum. But it could face legal and political conflicts with Beacon Hill if it decided to stop fluoridating the water on its own. (Fluoride is added to the water at the Mint Farm plant.)

The Beacon Hill supervisors did not want to speculate on what might happen if the city proceeds with fluoride removal without district consent.

”We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Roden said several times.

He added that “I have faith that the City Council will come to the right decision.”

Fluoride is a naturally occurring mineral that has been added to U.S. drinking water systems for nearly 80 years to help prevent tooth decay. Each community decides on its own whether it wants to use it.

Local doctors and dentists are nearly unanimous in advocating for its continued use, and both written and oral public comment to the City Council has overwhelmingly supported fluoridation.

Virtually every prominent U.S. dental and medical group endorses fluoridation as a safe and low cost way to prevent dental problems, particularly among poor children with little access to health care.

The Sewer District hearing room, which has a legal capacity to hold 30 people but usually hosts unattended public meetings, was packed with about 20 supporters of fluoride. They included about a half dozen or so water customers of the district. Halvorson attended but did not address the district supervisors.

Several speakers lamented that this issue is even under debate, given fluoride’s long record of scientific backing and safe use.

“I encourage you to bring sanity back,” Longview political activist Teresa Purcell told the Beacon Hill supervisors.

Retired pediatrician Blaine Tolby, a Lexington resident, said, “It’s sad in 2025 that our state of science literacy is so low” despite the abundance of information available to the public.

A speaker named Wayne, who said he ran Weyerhaeuser’s Co.’s mill water system, called it “ludicrous” that the matter is under debate when the local medical community so thoroughly advocates fluoride use. He bemoaned what he called “ineffective local government on steroids.”

Relying in part on the statements of a controversial Bellevue dentist, Halvorson has raised safety and freedom-of-choice concerns. He sides with critics who contend that adding fluoride is akin to medicating people without their permission. He has dismissed the overwhelming weight of public testimony on behalf of fluoridation, saying it does not reflect the true level of community opposition.

Fluoride has been hailed as a major medical advancement of the 20th Century, but periodically objections to it arise. On Monday, for example, the Camas City Council voted 4-2 to instruct the city’s attorney to draft an ordinance that would discontinue fluoridating that city’s drinking water.

Longview first started fluoridating its water in 1951. It stopped in 1953 when opponents prevailed in a referendum by 177 votes. The city resumed using it later that decade, and fluoridation won a 60% yes vote in a 1958 referendum. The city has added fluoride to its water since then at a current annual cost of about $14,000.

In August, a report by the federal government’s National Toxicology Program gave some ammunition to critics. It reviewed studies conducted in Canada, China, India, Iran, Pakistan and Mexico. The NTP concluded that drinking water containing more than 1.5 milligrams per liter (mg/l) is associated with slight decreases in childhood IQs.

However, the U.S. recommended level of fluoride in drinking water — 0.75 mg/l per liter — is less than half the level those studies found harmful. (The average levels in Longview’s water is 0.66 mg/l.)

Fluoride advocates point out that many of the studies considered in the NTP’s review involved water with very high levels of fluoride and were flawed by bias. Even so, they found only discoloration of teeth and a one-point IQ drop associated with high levels of fluoride, in the 2.0 to 4.0 mg/l range.

Supervisor Takko, a former state legislator and Cowlitz Count assessor, said he read the entire toxiocology study and concluded it has no application to fluoride use at the regulated level. And he doubted that a single point drop in IQ is statistically significant.

If the City council goes ahead with a referendum, ballots would be mailed to every registered voter in the city. It was not clear Tuesday night whether city water customers outside the city limits would be included in the vote. (City spokeswoman Angela Abel said Wednesday morning those customers would be included in the advisory election.)

The city estimates that a city referendum would cost $14,000 to $15,000.

The council is split on the issue. Councilwomen Ruth Kendall, MaryAlice Wallis and Angie Wean support continued fluoride use and oppose a referendum, saying public testiomony has made community support clear. Councilman Keith Young joins Halvorson in opposition to fluoride. Councilman/Mayor Spencer Boudreau and Councilwoman/Mayor Pro Tem Kalei LaFave support holding a referendum but are swing votes on the issue.

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