Two-decade practice ceases in early September due to cost and availability
By Randy Arrington
LURAY, June 26 — On Thursday, the Town of Luray issued a notice to all residents and municipal water customers that the long-held practice of adding fluoride to the Town’s drinking water will cease in September.
“Based on significant discussions and updates by Town staff, the Town Council [has] elected to discontinue the addition of fluoride to its drinking water,” the Town’s June 26 notice states. “Due to the required ninety (90) day notification period by the Virginia Department of Health – Office of Drinking Water, the Town will stop adding fluoride to its drinking water in early September 2025.”
The Notice was distributed to all Luray water customers in the June 25 utility bill. Hand-delivered copies of the Notice were distributed to apartment complexes and other groups and individuals on Tuesday, June 24.
While the benefits of adding fluoride to public drinking water to aid in dental health has been debated since the practice began in the United States in 1945, the Town of Luray started the practice about a quarter century ago. The key benefit was aimed at preventing tooth decay. However, with improvements to dental care products like toothpaste and mouthwash (most have fluoride added), many have questioned the true benefits of fluoride in drinking water, which is immediately swallowed and doesn’t remain in the mouth cavity very long (as opposed to toothpaste or mouthwash).
“The benefits are less significant now than they were back then,” Luray Town Manager Bryan Chrisman said on Thursday afternoon.
The triggers that brought the fluoride discussion to the forefront during a May 27 council meeting were cost and availability. Fluoride has become increasing difficult to purchase, with fewer U.S. suppliers, according to Chrisman, and many of those depending on overseas producers. With supply chain interruptions in recent years, the cost of powered fluoride had tripled over the last five years. After being unable to obtain the powered form, the Town switched to liquid fluoride in recent months and saw the price double again.
“No one had anything and the cost kept going up and up,” Chrisman noted. “Finally, we started asking, ‘Do we even need to be doing this?'”
In addition, the switchover to liquid this spring prompted about $10,000 in upgrades at the water plant to better control the distribution of fluoride in the drinking water.
“We have naturally occurring fluoride in our water sources, and that can vary in raw source water… That makes it very hard to regulate what’s going out because once it’s added, there’s no way to get it out,” Chrisman said. “It is monitored every day.”
While Town staff will no longer have to handle or store 600-pound barrels of fluoride after September, the upgrades recently made at the water plant were not in vain. The same reasoning for changing the pump assembly will benefit the plant in terms of chlorine disrtibution in the water, which is also in liquid form and used as a disinfectant.
The fluoridation process for drinking water started in Grand Rapids, Michigan as World War II was ending because studies showed that areas with naturally occurring fluoride in water supplies was linked to lower rates of cavities. By 1962, the U.S. Public Health Service officially recommended adding fluoride to public water supplies according to the American Cancer Society. As mentioned above, Luray has some naturally occurring fluoride in its water sources, so some of those benefits may remain after the addition of fluoride ceases.
The Town of Luray expects to save between $15,000 to $20,000 annually. The Town of Timberville in Rockingham County is taking the same steps as Luray to cease the addition of fluoride to its drinking water for basically the same reasons. Many localities have never added fluoride to its water supply.
The decision was not definitive by the Luray Council, which cast a 3-2 vote on June 9 to end the process. Council members Chuck Butler and Jerry Dofflemyer voted against the motion, while councilmen Joey Sours, Jason Pettit and Ron Vickers voted in favor of the cost-saving measure.
Councilman Alex White once again abstained.
To learn more about the Town of Luray, CLICK HERE.
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VIDEO ~ Page Valley Livin’ talks about Luray’s water issues with Bryan Chrisman
The next time Alex White votes on something that’s vaguely controversial it will be his first time. Geez.
I have literally cast more “no” votes than anyone else on the current council, including plenty where I was the only one – that’s not a shrinking violet. It’s not even close, and I’m only 3 years in. I’ve taken a small handful of abstentions, on issues where I thought the discussion or process wasn’t conducted correctly… I keep a long list of accomplishments for our town that I took the initiative to make happen, and I can share it if that would be meaningful. Some people aren’t interested in that though – I am mind boggled with the cute obsession people have with the fact that there is a vanishingly small set of issues where I don’t take the binary (because the decision set itself came from bad process).
Don’t get me wrong, you seem like a very dedicated and thoughtful public official and thank you for your service. However, by definition a vote is indeed “binary” – with the complete understanding that even in a binary vote there is often a gray area, understood completely. But respectfully, unless there is a direct conflict of interest which usually involves financial considerations (e.g., you work for a company that sells fluoride to municipalities), then in my humble opinion anything less than that – for example – you should be voting on this or any other matter.
And regarding the issue of fluoride in municipal drinking water, the biggest problem that is see is that in a vacuum maybe this action might not be as benighted, but it clearly dovetails with the anti-science, anti-health, anti-intellectualism, and anti-common sense agenda being pushed by a total weirdo elite lawyer with no scientific training and admitted former heroine addict. Got it. Strange times these are….
lol. Hey Barry, tell me you are influenced by the media without telling me you’re influenced by the media. RFK jr has said over and over to not listen to him and that frankly, it’s your civic duty to do your own research but as you libs stated during COVID, that’s not allowed anymore right?
Secretary of Health Kennedy says we should all do our own research on the complex scientific matters of vaccine design and efficiency? Issues that require PhD’s in statistics, biology and epidemiology- but we’re on our own now because why? Because he’s incapable of accepting facts as facts – preferring his special brand of conspiracy theory. He’s cancelled research. He’s filled scientific panels with his fellow deluded. He’s actively delaying things as well established as flu shots. Trump made a mess of this appointment.
Barry Lyndon- This is a thoughtful and measured response re: abstention… I think you make a good point that I’ve come to realize after hearing from a number of people over the past 48 hours. No decison set comes from perfect circumstances, but it’s incumbent on me to make one regardless – whether or not it would change an outcome (as in this case, where it admittedly would not have). Going forward, I’ll only go the abstention route for straight conflicts of interest. If I object to a process, then I ought to just say so and vote “No” on the thing in question. The 3 or 4 times that I’ve abstained are 3 or 4 too many. I appreciate that people know that they can reach out to me and explain how they think I ought to do things differently. I thank you for doing that
I cannot believe I just read a civil, thoughtful back-and-forth between two individuals, one giving (mild) criticism and the other being mature and humble enough to take it. Can you see a similar conversation between, say, Lindsey Graham and Jasmine Crockett? Well done, gentlemen. PS. Barry, RFK is crazy, but I kind of like him…
Eric Smith
A long time ago, when fluoride was initially put in our water system, I had a letter in the PN&C which opposed fluoridation.