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AG says county can order fluoride in PUD water

Staff Report
Skagit Valley Herald
March 27, 2008 - 11:52 AM


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The state Attorney General's Office issued an opinion today stating that a county health board does have the authority to order the fluoridation of a water supply system owned and operated by a public utility district within the county's jurisdiction.

Skagit County had requested the nonbinding legal opinion after the Skagit County Public Utility District raised questions about its obligation to follow the county Board of Health's order to start fluoridating drinking water.

This past May, county commissioners, acting as the Board of Health, gave the PUD one year to implement fluoridation in Sedro-Woolley, Burlington, Mount Vernon and surrounding areas. Refusal to comply could lead to fines.

The deadline is approaching, but the PUD has not yet fluoridated the drinking water.

The opinion answered four questions related to a county's power to order a PUD to fluoridate water, and all found in the county's favor.

"Local water fluoridation ordinances have generally been upheld as actions that are consistent with the exercise of delegated public health police powers and that do not violate constitutionally-protected liberty interests," the opinion states.

The opinion also found that the county could order the PUD to fluoridate, even when the order is contingent on a third-party source providing the funding for the fluoridation process. In Skagit County's case, the Washington Dental Service Foundation has offered to pay about $1 million to get the fluoridation plant up and running. The PUD had expressed concerns over whether it could legally accept private funds.

The attorney general's opinion is not legally binding, but could provide valuable information in the case of a lawsuit and generally carries weight in court.


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Report Violation Posted by Don Johnson  on  April 30, 2008 - 01:02 PM

“Common sense,” it looks as though you slept through civics classes, too. The United States of America is not a democracy, where anything goes provided that the majority approves. The Founding Fathers created a Constitutional/representative Republic, where *individuals* have certain unalienable rights to protect them from a tyranny of the majority. Your “mob rule” mentality is a prime example of why we don’t have a democracy. The vote on Prop 2 was razor thin and flawed. At least 1% of the ballots were given to people who get their water from wells. Almost 2% of PUD ratepayers were denied ballots. Even Munks was quoted in the April 11, 2007 SVH, “We didn’t really get a message from the advisory vote.”
http://www.skagitcleanwater.org/news-items/SVH070411--Decision-set.html

Report Violation Posted by Common sense  on  April 30, 2008 - 01:18 PM

Irtnog,
The only dump one is YOU.  The one who doesn’t understand that if you drank enough water to reach the lethal dose of Fluoride you would have already killed your self by drinking too much water.  Yes, you can do that.

You mouth off warped half wit comments on just about every subject on the SVH.  Get a life!

Oh remember you lost the vote.

Report Violation Posted by Don Johnson  on  April 30, 2008 - 01:25 PM

Yes, richiem999, my health problems are unfortunate. Even more disastrous is the fact that standard blood panels do not register subclinical hypothyroidism. A person can exhibit symptoms of low thyroid function and because his or her lab work shows “normal” T4 and T3 levels and TSH uptake, your typical phactory phamily physician tells the patient that he or she has mental problems! I am far from being an isolated case. To make matters even worse, the fabled “optimal” fluoridation level is enough to push those with “normal” thyroid performance into a clinical condition. The NRC report was highly critical of the lack of detail in previous studies undertaken by the CDC and the WHO on the endocrine system. Begin reading at http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11571&page=224

Report Violation Posted by LaneW  on  April 30, 2008 - 02:45 PM

Common sense, is The Pot calling the kettle black?


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