BRADENTON, Fla. – Manatee County commissioners voted Tuesday morning to stop adding fluoride to county drinking water.

The vote was 5-1 to stop adding the mineral. 

In discussing the move, commissioners mentioned the bill making its way through the legislature, saying the bill to ban it statewide will likely pass and they were reluctant to spend taxpayer dollars to fix their broken fluoride system.

"I am not going to authorize our utilities department to start spending millions of dollars of your money to fix a machine to start putting fluoride in, a few months before the state bans me from putting fluoride in,” said Commissioner George Kruse. “That is bad use of taxpayer funds."

What makes the vote regarding Manatee County’s drinking water different than others is that their fluoridation system hasn’t been working for the last couple of years.

Deputy County Administrator Evan Pilachowski confirmed during a January meeting that the system has not been operating and it will cost between $1.5 million and $2 million to fix in a process that could take up to three years.

Ongoing Debate

During a recent public hearing on the issue, those on both sides of the issue spoke to commissioners hoping to sway their decision.

“Even though it’s not currently fluoridated, if you’re looking to save money or save the IQ of children, I would ask that you consider you don’t fix the fluoridated water and look for other alternatives,” resident Allison Euker said while speaking at the podium.

Manatee County dentist Dr. Robert Clement also spoke to commissioners and stressed the importance of fluoride and keeping it in the water supply.

“Fluoride decreases decay in children up to 65% and it also helps adults,” he said. “Dental decay is the number one chronic disease and adding fluoride to water is like adding iodine to salt, calcium in milk, and Vitamin C in juice to help prevent other chronic diseases.”

A study published earlier this year kicked off a push from Florida’s Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo to get communities to stop adding the mineral to water supplies. The study raised concerns about fluoride exposure saying it can lead to a lower IQ in children.

The American Dental Association says fluoride is not toxic in the levels that it is currently added to water. The agency released a statement in January on a report regarding fluoride’s impact on IQ.

“The main takeaway is that it did not find any connection between lower IQ and fluoride intake at the level recommended for community water fluoridation,” the statement reads in part.

Over the last few months, a number of Tampa Bay area communities have mulled the decision of if they should pull the mineral from drinking water sources. Lakeland and Winter Haven chose to remove fluoride, while more recently Clearwater and Hillsborough County voted to keep drinking water the way it is now.

Meanwhile, the statewide fluoride bill to stop adding fluoride to drinking water across Florida, not just city by city or county by county, cleared its final committee stop in the state senate on Thursday.