Natick Report

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Natick water fluoride update: Wellesley to the rescue

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Natick earlier this month warned that in mid-October it would likely run out of the sodium fluoride it adds during water treatment to help improve oral health in kids. That shortage was expected to last until December.

But the town of Wellesley, flush with the stuff, has come to the rescue, as the Natick Public Works Department posted on social media:

(Good News) Drinking Water Notice – UPDATE on Fluoride Supply Shortage
The Department has sourced and acquired a two month supply of fluoride. There will be no interruption in fluoridation.
We thank our generous neighbors and partners to the east. Thank you Wellesley Department of Public Works.

Wellesley DPW Director David Cohen told The Swellesley Report earlier in the week that the town had not been affected by the fluoride shortage.

“We’re not having the same challenge mostly because our Morses Pond Treatment Plant is off-line and our existing [sodium fluoride] inventory will last us many months,” Cohen said, adding that his department had reached out to Natick to offer help.

That Wellesley treatment plant came offline in May following the discovery of elevated levels of PFAS chemicals in the water—an issue Natick is well familiar with in its own water. In light of the PFAS situation, Wellesley has significantly upped its use of water from the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, which says on its website that it “maintains a target fluoride level of 0.7 ppm, as recommended by the CDC and US HHS, and EPA to reduce tooth decay.”

Natick says drinking water suppliers nationwide are running into sodium fluoride shortages due to supply chain issues with sourcing the inorganic chemical compound.

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Comments

  1. Rosalind says

    Just to let people know Fluoride is not good for people with very Bad Arthritis so it would have been nice to have had a little Break from it.Thanks Wellesley.

  2. Michael Dolan says

    How ironic that Wellesley had to reduce the use of a water supply because of the presence of organofluorides (PFAS), but is happy to deliberately add the inorganic fluorides to drinking water. Are the PFAS chemicals such terrible toxins that they have to be regulated at parts per trillion while the inorganic fluorides, seen by some as magical elixirs of life, perfectly safe at 0.7 parts per million, more than a million times more concentrated than the PFAS?

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