Water Issues
AR Republicans could have stopped the State Mandated Water Fluoridation Bill.
Yes, that’s right the Republicans in AR could of stopped the water fluoridation mandate from passing. They could of stopped SB 359/Act 197 in both the Senate and the House! Don’t believe it? You can see it with your own eyes by clicking the below links.
The Senate vote for SB359 was Yeas 25, Nays 7 and Non Voting 3. From the 25 Yeas there was 9 Republicans that voted Yeas with the Democrats. Two Republicans did not vote. So if you take the 9 Republicans that voted Yeas and the 2 Republicans that did not vote and cast them for the Nay vote you would have 18 Nays votes and 16 Yea votes. So you see the Republicans could have stopped the Mandated Fluoride bill in the Senate. See Senate Vote on SB 359 at the below link.
http://www.arkleg.state.ar.us/assembly/2011/2011R/Pages/Votes.aspx?rcsnum=245&votechamber=Senate
The House vote for SB359 was Yeas 56, Nays 35, Non Voting 5 and Present 2. From the Yeas there were 9 Republicans the voted Yeas with the Democrats. Two Republicans did not vote and two Republicans were present only. So if you take the 9 Republicans that voted Yeas, the 2 Republicans that did not vote and the 2 Republicans that were present only and cast them for the Nay votes you would have 48 Nay votes and 47 Yea votes. So you see the Republicans could have stopped the Mandated Fluoride bill in the House. See House Vote on SB 359 at the below link.
http://www.arkleg.state.ar.us/assembly/2011/2011R/Pages/Votes.aspx?rcsnum=384&votechamber=House
The next 3 sites provides information on some of the many reasons why we should not be fluoridating our water supply.
State Fluoridation Mandate is Underfunded, Wasteful, Complex and Shortsighted. http://theperpetualview.wordpress.com/2012/03/08/arkansas-state-fluoridation-mandate/
AR doctor testifies before the Public Health and welfare Committee. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKKjhVu7ma4
Arkansas legislature ignores science, mandates toxic fluoridation for entire state. http://www.naturalnews.com/031539_Arkansas_fluoridation.html Arkansas
We would be willing to bet that many of these legislators received campaign money from the dental community and special interests for their Yes vote on SB359, which mandated water fluoridation.
Remember their vote, on May 22nd, when you go to cast your vote.
Arkansas Water Operator poisoned by fluoride. Do we really want this in our water?
The Joe Walls Story
by Joe and Jodee Walls
They were living the American Dream. Their American Dream, anyway. Restoring their historic home together, coaching their two sons’ Little League teams, planning for the future. He was finally getting to use his biology degree as a water operator at a rural water plant. She was able to stay home with the kids. Life was good.
Until March 28, 1997. It was Good Friday, ironically enough. When Joe Walls came home, his wife, Jodee, asked him how his day was. He told her the fluoride pump had gone down again at the Kimzey Regional water plant, and when he attempted to investigate the problem, he was sprayed with 250 PSI of fluorosilicic acid as he removed the lines from the pump. He showed her what looked like a mild sunburn on his arms and upper body. Even his hands were burned, even though he had been wearing gloves, since the chemical splashed over the top of his rubber gloves and quickly filled them. Later Jodee found the outer shirt he had worn that day in the laundry and wondered why he hadn’t simply thrown it away, as the holes eaten in it from the acid made it fit for nothing but a dust rag. He was especially frustrated because when he went to wash the chemical from his body, he discovered the chemical shower in the plant wasn’t operational, so he had to do the best he could to clean himself in the sink.
He called the office to report the incident and made a note of it in the daily log. When he called, the office manager told him to come by the office before he went home for the day.
The week before Joe had injured his back unloading chlorine tanks from a delivery truck. He had seen his doctor, been diagnosed with a slightly herniated disc, and told to take off work for a week. When he went by the office the afternoon he was splashed with fluoride, the office manager said the doctor had released him for “light duty” work only. Because the water operation didn’t have any jobs considered light duty, he would not be allowed to work until his doctor reported him a fit for full duty.
Joe felt fine, his back was no longer bothering him, so he figured he would call the doctor Monday and request a full release. Little did he know that release would never come.
Over the course of that Easter weekend, he began feeling worse. Not only was his back hurting again, he was having pains in his neck that traveled down his right shoulder and arm. His right arm was in turns feeling pins and needles pricking it, on fire, or aching with a cold numbness. By Monday morning he was hardly able to move. He made another appointment with the doctor.
The next seven months were a debilitating nightmare of orthopedists, neurologists, and rheumatologists, as Joe became sicker and sicker, more and more unable to carry out simple tasks of daily living, in greater and greater pain. He experienced constant nausea and blinding headaches. He threw up daily, often hourly, lost fifty pounds, was hospitalized for dehydration. Doctors ruled out ALS, MS, RSD, and a host of other diseases and disorders with terrifying acronyms. No one could tell him what was wrong with him as he continued to lose muscle mass and bone density and his teeth cracked and crumbled and the pain became unceasing and excruciating. One thing the doctors did agree on: Whatever was wrong with Joe, it wasn’t caused by a back injury. Their only course of action was to prescribe ever increasing amounts of pain medicine.
In the meantime, the insurance wars were being waged. The Workers Compensation company suspected Joe of being a malingerer, of attempting a scam, of drug addiction. He was assigned a case manager. He was sent to a pain specialist for a test to determine if he was “faking” his pain. The test determined he wasn’t. Then Workers Comp determined that whatever was wrong with Joe, it was related to any incident that occurred on the job. They dismissed his claim. Joe and Jodee weren’t immediately concerned; they still had their regular health insurance, after all. No, that company insisted that Workers Compensation was responsible for covering Joe’s medical care.
Still no diagnosis, no health coverage despite faithful payments for health insurance, no income. They lost their house. They lost two vehicles. They moved in with Joe’s mother. Jodee went to work and went back to school. Joe lay in bed day after day, when he wasn’t limping to the bathroom to throw up. Their boys had to quit their ball teams, Cub Scouts, and tae kwon do. The older boy became sullen and confrontational. The younger boy woke every morning with screaming headaches. Jodee took the kids to therapy, doctors put them on anti-depressants. Her doctor increased her anti-depressant.
But something else happened on that visit to the pain doctor to determine the authenticity of Joe’s pain. Finally, in the presence of a medical professional, Joe had what he had been able to describe only as a “fit.” The right side of his body became ice cold, the pain took his breath away, and the ache traveling down his arm became unbearable. Dr. Ackerman measured Joe’s surface skin temperature and discovered that yes, indeed, the right side of his body was 4-6 degrees colder than the left side of his body. He asked Joe to describe his other symptoms. After listening to Joe recite his oft-repeated laundry list of health problems, he asked the question that changed everything.
“Where you in the Gulf War?”
“No,” Joe answered, truthfully. “Why?”
“This sounds like Gulf War syndrome. What about chemical exposures? Have you been exposed to any chemicals recently?”
And from there a mysterious illness unraveled. Joe eventually was introduced to Dr. Phyllis Mullenix, a pharmacologist and renowned toxicologist who at the time was Head of the Toxicology Department at the Forsyth Dental Center, a dental research institution affiliated with the Harvard Medical School. Dr. Mullenix spoke with Joe over the phone, described the symptoms of fluoride exposure, which matched Joe’s symptoms exactly, predicted what he would experience in the future, and advised him on steps to take to improve his condition.
Today Joe avoids fluoride as much as possible, but with fluoridation mandated in many cities, it is impossible to eliminate it entirely. His nausea and vomiting have decreased dramatically, but he still experiences ongoing digestive problems. He has permanent neuropathy in his hands. He has advanced osteoporosis. He has lost all his teeth. He has painful bone spurs and joint deformities. He is unable to participate in many of the activities he enjoyed before being exposed to fluorosilicic acid. After being 100% disabled for almost fourteen years, he has recently been able to return to the work force in a limited capacity. He still takes an enormous quantity of pain medicine to be able to function, but his pain and med intake has somewhat stabilized in the past six years.
He will never get back what he has lost. His health, the years he was unable to spend with his growing children, the time he would have spent with his wife. His family is still struggling to recover financially from the toll of loss of income, medical bills, and bankruptcy. The emotional scars won’t heal. He can only share his story with others and hope to prevent this happening to anyone else.
Water Words-Important Board meeting ALERT
Water Words: Americans already over-fluoridated
http://www.lovelycitizen.com/story/1836272.html
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Lovely County Citizen
by Becky Gillette
It is interesting to look for unintended consequences with government mandates, like the one in Arkansas that requires fluoridation of our water supplies. With Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stating an estimated 41 percent of children ages 12 to 15 are over-fluoridated, why in the world would we need to spend millions of dollars to add more fluoride in the water?
And it appears that the CDC is covering up the true extent of fluoride-damaged children to protect profits for fluoridation suppliers instead of people. While the CDC officially reports that 41 percent of 12-15 year-olds have fluorosis, their own statistics show 60 percent actually are affected by dental fluorosis — white spotted, yellow, brown and/or pitted teeth — the outward sign of fluoride’s toxicity to the human body.
Whether we are talking about 41 or 60 percent of children being over-fluoridated, the Arkansas Dept. of Health has ignored the new lower fluoride limits recommended by CDC, and instead allows the higher levels implicated in dental fluorosis.
Another unintended consequence of Big Brother deciding everyone in the country is the same no matter what age or health and should receive the same dose of fluoride, is that the risk of overdose is high because there are already large concentrations of fluoride in our food. Even though we here in Eureka Springs currently don’t have fluoride in the water, we could still get far more fluoride than is good for us through the foods we eat.
Crystal Harvey, who is state coordinator of Safe Drinking Water for Secure Arkansas, said the optimal range for daily intake of fluoride — the level that maximizes protection against tooth decay but minimizes other risks — is generally considered to be 0.05 to 0.07 milligram for each kilogram of body weight.
“Consuming foods and beverages with large amounts of fluoride can put a diet above this range,” Harvey said. “[These] are typical trace levels of fluoride, measured in parts per million (ppm), found in foods and drinks tested at the University of Iowa College of Dentistry: 3.73 ppm, brewed black tea; 2.34 ppm, raisins; 2.02 ppm, white wine, 1.09 ppm, apple-flavored juice drink, 0.91 ppm, brewed coffee, and 0.71 ppm, tap water (U.S.-wide average).”
As you can see, a lot of foods contain many times more fluoride than the recommended one milligram of fluoride per day.
If fluoride is added to our water, people who have hypothyroidism will be forced to buy an expensive reverse osmosis water filter to take out the fluoride. Research shows that fluoride can cause problems with the thyroid gland. Hypothyroidism has become so common it is being called an epidemic. Could all the fluoride in food plus what is deliberately put into the water be one of the causes of this epidemic?
A comprehensive review of the scientific literature on fluoride exposure and thyroid toxicity was conducted by a panel appointed by the National Research Council of the National Academies (NRC). It found that fluoride exposure was associated with low levels of thyroid and parathyroid hormones, and an abnormally enlarged thyroid glandes (goiter). They also found that fluoride tended to concentrate in the thyroid more than in any organ but the kidneys.
“Fluoride has detrimental effects on the thyroid gland of healthy males at 3.5 mg a day. With iodine deficiency, the effect level drops to 0.7 milligrams a day for an average male,” retired environmental scientist Robert Carton said. Carton has 30 years’ experience working for the EPA.
The Carroll Boone Water District board will meet at 10 a.m. Thursday, April 19, at their plant headquarters at Beaver Lake to discuss whether to institute fluoridation of our water system even though grant funds that were supposed to be available to pay for the fluoridation mandate have fallen far short.
Please consider attending the meeting or contacting members of the board to ask them to delay implementation of this mandate at least until full grant funds are available.
Address for board meeting is 11510 HWY 187,Eureka Springs in the office building.
Carroll Boone Water District Board:
Gene Bland
P.O. Drawer 30
Eureka Springs 72632
(479) 253-9660
Gene Chafin
P.O. Box 105
Berryville AR 72616
(870) 423-1903
Harold Collins
171 CR 938
Green Forest AR 72638
(870) 438-5338
James Yates
3778 Wingate
Harrison AR 72601,
(870) 741-5878
Mark Billings
4101 Turtle Creek Cove
Harrison AR 72601
(870) 741-3488
Franc A. Brooks III, DDS
2102 First National Drive
Harrison AR 72601
(870) 741-0812
Water Fluoridation Costs Escalate
Fluoride Costs Escalate
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Becky Gillette
The Carroll Boone Water District (CBWD) board will meet at 10 a.m. April 19 to consider proceeding with fluoridation of public drinking water despite not having sufficient grants to cover startup costs. The board will discuss whether to use district funds to implement fluoridation.
State legislation in 2011 that mandated fluoridation of all water systems with more than 5,000 customers specified that money for fluoridation equipment had to be obtained from outside grants, not tax money or user fees.
Delta Dental, an oral health insurance company, pushed for the mandatory fluoridation law in the legislature, and grants from the Delta Dental Foundation were supposed to be used to pay for the fluoridation equipment. But DDF underestimated what it would cost.
Delta Dental has reportedly offered CBWD about $763,000, while the cost estimated by engineers to institute fluoridation for the district that serves 25,000 people, including residents of Eureka Springs, Berryville and Harrison, is $1.23 million.
James Yates of Harrison, president of the CBWD board, said he has to follow state law requiring fluoridation. “My feeling, personal or otherwise, doesn’t apply to the board,” Yates said. “I have no control over what the health department does. We can’t just come up and say, ‘Look, this is bad, guys. We aren’t going to do it.’ They have told us to do it.
“They are the ones who tell us what we have to do. If the state mandates we have to put fluoride in our water and the people managing the grants make a statement that we are only entitled to so much money for startup costs because they won’t cover certain things, we are going to do it right.
“We are not going to put any of our employees at risk. If they say we have to do it and the law mandates we do it, we will do it the safest and most effective way for both employees and customers. That is our number one priority.”
On Monday, State Rep. Bryan King (R-Green Forest) obtained an opinion from the State of Arkansas Bureau of Legislative Research that said: “You asked whether the Carroll Boone Water District is obligated to pay for fluoride implementation under Act 197 of 2011 even if grant funds fall short. The answer is probably ‘No’.
“Under subsection (d)(1) of Act 197 of 2011, codified at Arkansas Code § 20-7-136, water systems are not required to implement the law until funds are available from some source other than taxes or fees regularly collected by the water system. Unless non-tax, no-fee funds are available for capital start up costs, the water system is not required to carry out any of the requirements of the act. That is, unless the capital costs are covered by some outside funds, the water system is not required to maintain the fluoride levels established by the Department of Health under the act.”
King said he did not vote for the fluoride mandate in the Public Health Committee or on the House floor, and the majority of constituents who have contacted him oppose fluoridation.
“Concerns have come from all over the political spectrum,” King said. “Usually in Carroll County it is liberal versus conservative, or the east side of the river against the west side of river. But this issue has raised a lot of concerns all over the county. A lot of people just don’t like the mandate, that they aren’t able to decide themselves whether they should fluoridate or not. There have been some people who are supportive of it, but the majority of people who have contacted me have been opposed to it for a wide variety of reasons.”
King said he wouldn’t be surprised to see an effort in the next legislative session to overturn the mandate. Opponents said it was rushed through in seven days without an opportunity for adequate public comment.
Fluoride added to drinking water is a controversial subject, with the official government position being that it saves money by preventing cavities. Opponents say it can cause health problems such as hypothyroidism, heart disease and learning disabilities in children.
A recent study by the CDC showed 41 percent of children aged 12 to 15 were over-fluoridated, with resulting irreversible damage to their teeth from dental fluorosis.
The Arkansas Department of Health recently set fluoride limits at the level the CDC said could cause fluorosis, rather than at the lower level now recommended by the CDC.
Arkansas allows up to 1.2 milligrams per liter as opposed to the CDC’s recommendation of an amount nearly half that level, .7 milligrams per liter.
The health department also denied that lead leaching could be issue in Eureka Springs, which has twice voted against fluoridation.
The city’s contract with CBWD forbids the introduction of corrosive water into the city’s drinking water supply. Concerns have been raised by the 12 employees at the Carroll Boone Water District (CBWD) that the corrosive nature of fluoride could leach lead from water distribution systems in historic cities like Eureka Springs.
That has happened in other areas of the country, like Washington D.C., leading to excessive levels of lead in children and pregnant women. According to the CDC, lead causes development delays in children, damages kidneys and the nervous system, and interferes with red blood cell chemistry.
The EPA said in 1995 that 69 million people served by 4,167 community water systems in the U.S. exceeded the lead action levels due to corrosive water.
The corrosiveness of fluoride has also been shown to damage water system equipment. Poughkeepsie’s Joint Water Board in Dutchess County, N.Y., discontinued use of fluoride after 18 months due to damage to equipment, according to Citizens for Safe Drinking Water.
It is possible that later on grant funds will become available to implement mandatory fluoridation. DDF has announced plans to try to raise an additional $10 million to pay for fluoridation startup costs statewide, but if CBWD accepts the $763,000 grant currently offered, they would not be eligible to receive any more funding from DDF.
“While the benefits of fluoridation may be debatable, the cost factor is certainly not,” said CBWD operator René Fonseca. “Those of us who work at the CBWD plant believe there are other more important priorities for infrastructure improvements.
“The West Plant has run 24 hours a day for the past 30 years. It needs money for rehabilitation. Plans for a $1-million-plus parallel pipeline we need for future growth has been put on hold for over a year. These needs are a higher priority than adding fluoridation equipment.”
Fonseca said that if the district is forced to proceed with fluoridation, changes will have to be made in its engineering to add chemicals to help with corrosion control.
Currently water leaves the plant at a neutral pH of about 7.2. Adding fluoride would make the water more acidic, and chemicals would have to be added to bring the pH back up. This would involve a new engineering study that would include how to add more chemicals, which would cost money; and adding anti-corrosive chemicals would also raise the yearly costs of fluoridation.
According to a letter explaining terms of the grant, by accepting money from DDF, CBWD has to agree to fluoridate the water for at least ten years, or pay back a pro-rated share if fluoridation is stopped.
Employees of the CBWD are on record as opposed to fluoridation on the grounds that some studies show adverse health effects from drinking fluoridated water; equipment can be damaged by the highly corrosive chemicals; and the chemicals are highly hazardous to workers.
Operators have also raised concerns about recent studies showing the sodium fluorosilicate additive contained 17 trace elements of a toxic nature including lead, arsenic, and thorium, a radionuclide.
“These are extremely dangerous substances,” Fonseca said. “The acute lethal toxicity of sodium fluorosilicate for an adult man is 6.2 grams, which is about the weight of an average driver’s license. At a water plant the size of CBWD, you would be dumping 150 pounds a day into the water–enough oral doses to poison 9,600 men a day or 297,000 men a month. This is not pharmaceutical grade fluoride, as you would receive in the dental office.”
Fonseca said operators, who are well trained and must pass licensing tests, will stand firm about refusing to add this substance to the water unless there is proper disclosure as required by law. He said it appears there are no domestic suppliers of the fluoride additives, so CBWD will start searching for foreign sources.
“Who wouldn’t want to know the amount of radionuclides in a product?” Fonseca asked. “If you buy even a candy bar in a store, you get a list of ingredients. Shouldn’t we know what we are putting in our drinking water?”
Carroll Boone Water District Board:
Gene Bland
P.O. Drawer 30
Eureka Springs 72632
(479) 253-9660
Gene Chafin
P.O. Box 105
Berryville AR 72616
(870) 423-1903
Harold Collins
171 CR 938
Green Forest AR 72638
(870) 438-5338
James Yates
3778 Wingate
Harrison AR 72601,
(870) 741-5878
Mark Billings
4101 Turtle Creek Cove
Harrison AR 72601
(870) 741-3488
Franc A. Brooks III, DDS
2102 First National Drive
Harrison AR 72601
(870) 741-0812
© Copyright 2012, Lovely County Citizen
Story URL: http://www.lovelycitizen.com/story/1828366.html
Arkansas State Fluoridation Mandate is Underfunded, Wasteful, Complex and Shortsighted
When is toxic waste good enough to drink?
Last Workshop of the Corps
Carroll Boone Water District Operator Takes Up Fluoride Mandate Fight
Emergency Appeal for Funds
Arkansas Senator Profits from Legislation
