ORLANDO, Fla. — Leesburg city leaders are moving forward with a plan to add fluoride to the city’s drinking water, despite concerns from at least two city leaders – and some residents. The decision comes at a time when other cities are considering removing fluoride from their water systems.

What You Need To Know

  • Leesburg city leaders are moving forward with a plan to add fluoride to the city’s drinking water, despite concerns from at least two city leaders – and some residents

  • The decision comes at a time when other cities are considering removing fluoride from their water systems

  • In January 2024, Leesburg City Commissioners approved spending $80,000 dollars to design a project to add fluoride to the city’s public water system.

  • Construction on the fluoride project is expected to begin in January 2025, with completion of the project set for August 2025

Leesburg city commissioners had three options when it comes to the proposal to add fluoride to the local drinking water. They can terminate the project, pause it or move forward.

With a vote of three to two, they voted to proceed forward.

In January 2024, Leesburg City Commissioners approved spending $80,000 to design a project to add fluoride to the city’s public water system. The project will cost a total about $600,000 to complete.

At Monday night’s meeting, at least one commissioner cited Florida’s Surgeon General, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, who claims that fluoride can be harmful to children, and called for Florida municipalities to remove it from their water systems. That’s an argument Alan Hays, a retired dentist with decades of experience, refutes.

“The evidence of the fluoride is irrefutable,” said Hays, who also serves as Lake County’s Supervisor of Elections. “We have over 7,000 peer-reviewed scientific papers that show the benefits of fluoride in the incorporation of that fluoride ion when the tooth is being formed in the jawbone of the patient.”

Alice Hoffman was one of several Leesburg residents who showed up at the city’s discussion about the issue to speak publicly about it. She says fluoride should be something a person chooses to have in their water.

“It’s like medicating everybody whether we want it or not, is what it is,” said Hoffman.

Hoffman believes President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to be the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, will ban fluoride from water across the country. That’s something at least one Leesburg city commissioner said would force the city to spend more money on if they had to reverse the project.

“Leesburg, do we really want to be the only city in Florida that actually doesn’t have fluoride in our water and now we want to spend a half a million dollars to put it in? And $30,000 every year to find the fluoride and put it in? It just doesn’t make any sense,” said Hoffman.

But Hays if it comes down to a matter of cost, not adding fluoride could be costly to patients, including kids who won’t get the benefit of cavity prevention.

“It will be a lot more beneficial for the dentists if we take fluoride out because you’re going to see decay rates go sky high, so the dentists are going to make a whole lot money,” said Hays. “It’s also going to cost the parents a whole lot more money.”

For now, Leesburg city leaders are moving forward with the plan. Construction on the fluoride project is expected to begin in January 2025, with completion of the project set for August 2025.  

Elsewhere in Lake County, city leaders in Tavares are also considering whether to remove fluoride from their drinking water this week.