Article content The city of Montreal is proposing to stop adding fluoride to the West Island’s tap water starting in 2025, but at least one affected municipality is unsatisfied with the plan. If a vote by the agglomeration council passes, the change would affect more than 143,000 people in Pointe-Claire, Beaconsfield, Kirkland, Baie-D’Urfé, Dollard-des-Ormeaux and Dorval. The water plants in Pointe-Claire and Dorval, which treat the majority of water in the West Island, are the only plants that fluoridate their drinking water.
Across the rest of the island of Montreal, tap water has never been fluoridated. Factors that led to the city’s proposal include the safety of city employees handling corrosive chemicals, uncertainty around fluoride’s health effects, and the high maintenance cost of fluoridation, Montreal city councillor Maja Vodanovic said. “We don’t want to use water as a vehicle for medication.
We don’t want to use water as a vehicle for pharmaceuticals,” Vodanovic told The Gazette. A spokesperson for Vodanovic’s office said the cost of keeping the fluoridation program would be $19 million to make the necessary upgrades to the plants, plus $330,000 per year in maintenance. “We have many, many, many priorities right now in Montreal for water,” Vodanovic said, in reference to the high cost of the fluoridation program.
She has been dealing with Montreal’s aging water infrastructure first-hand, since multiple water mains have ruptured across the.
