I have lived here on the Sammamish Plateau since 1987, after retiring from 32 years of Federal service. Being active enough to get locally involved, I ran for a seat on the Sammamish Plateau Water and Sewer District Board of Commissioners and served just short of 12 years. I really liked my position as I got to make lots of friends and really felt like a contributing member of the community.

I understand why some folks in the dental field feel that fluoridation of public water supply serves a greater good. I don’t argue with the concept of trying to improve our dental health, but I find the current means hard to accept. We should not add a chemical to our water supply which some people (be it few or many), feel is unhealthy to them personally and to all of us in varying degrees.

I wonder just how much fluoride is ingested on a daily basis by the general population, when how it is measured is in the complete dark. So to set standards of the level of fluoride supplied in our drinking water means little. Some people drink bottled water, others drink tap water; at home and at work, we get fluoride in our food and in our toothpaste, all in varying amounts. Speaking of toothpaste, have you ever read the warning on the back side? When we go to the dentist, we get it as a dental fluoride wash or application.

The issue to fluoridate our water has been fought and won in various states and cities, and it comes down to the water providers in both municipalities and water districts to be the provider of fluoride in our local water supply. The city of Seattle fluoridates its water and then sells that water to other local water providers, such as the Sammamish Plateau, the city of Issaquah and others. Not all customers of the various providers are served treated water; some remain on “pure” well water. This is a factor of how the supply system pipes are laid out. It would be nice if one could just pick water with fluoride or without. Then everybody would be happy.

Why cause such hardship on a few folks when the results are so undefined as to what is the correct level of fluoride that should be added in our home

water supply?

I find the issue especially heavy-handed on a few who find it very costly to remove the fluoride, when most homeowners can easily obtain a low cost

personal supply of fluoride if wanted.

-Bob George

Sammamish