The Skagit Public Utility District wants to pass the fluoride buck to the customers and the blame to the county with a new line item on water bills titled “County Mandated Fluoridation.”

PUD General Manager David Johnson said early estimates indicate the utility district will pay $135,000 each year for sodium fluoride and maintenance costs. Customers will cover that cost through a usage-based rate assessed at each bill period.

The wording is more than a simple explanation. Johnson wants customers to know who is behind the county-wide fluoridation.

“The (PUD) commission did not make the decision to put fluoride in the system,” Johnson said. “The commission did not have a choice, and they want our customers to know they did not have a choice.”

Washington Dental Service Foundation President Laura Smith called the cost concerns a “red herring” meant to further delay and distract the utility from implementing the fluoridation system, originally set to start in May.

In addition to the $135,000 to pay for the 10 50-pound bags of sodium fluoride per day, ongoing maintenance and security for the facility, Johnson worries about higher-than-expected building costs for the three fluoride injection stations.

The issue of whether to fluoridate the water in Skagit PUD’s service area has been the subject of sometimes rancorous debate in the community. Many in the community object to what they consider forced medication and cite what they describe as the health risks from fluoride.

In an advisory ballot in the November 2006 election, 52-percent of the voters in the PUD’s service area endorsed fluoridation.

But PUD commissioners have been slow to begin the process and questioned whether the Skagit County commissioners had the authority to order fluoridation. The commissioners issued the order in their capacity as the county board of health.

Prosecutor Rich Weyrich earlier this year sought an opinion from the attorney general’s office on the question of the commission’s authority. In March the attorney general issued an opinion upholding the commissioner’s authority to order the PUD to fluoridate.

The Washington Dental Service Foundation committed $1.2 million to the fluoridation stations, but Johnson said land acquisition and the proximity to the river could bring the total cost higher.

“We’re not sure $1.2 million is enough,” he said, adding that the original feasibility study did not include some of these added costs.

Johnson said two of the stations will sit within 200 feet of the Skagit River and in a 100-year flood plain, and said the design may need to take certain precautions or meet requirements of the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA).

Smith said the dental foundation would help pay for any reasonable building costs above the $1.2 million and discounted the SEPA concerns wholesale.

“It’s not a barrier to fluoridating water,” she said.

She called the $135,000 materials and operations estimate outrageous, estimating customers would pay around $1 each year.

“My guess is they haven’t gone out and found out what other municipalities are doing for this problem,” she said. “Maybe they just haven’t thought through this, and we’re happy to help them with that.”

The news of the bill arrives in tandem with a public utility-hosted community input meeting Thursday evening. The district will meet with residents, for and against fluoridation, to hear their concerns at Burlington-Edison High School at 6:30 p.m.

• Aaron Burkhalter can be reached at 360-416-2155 or