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The issue of fluoride in drinking water is dividing a community board in Queens as they debate whether to pressure city and state officials to remove the chemical from New York City's water system.
Community Board 1 - which covers all of Astoria, parts of Long Island City and Woodside - considered a motion at its monthly meeting this week that would ask elected leaders in a letter to petition the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for the removal of fluoride from drinking water. Leaving aside the scientific nuance of the debate, some members expressed skepticism over whether a local community board should be weighing in.
Antonella Di Saverio, the board's environmental and sanitation committee chair, cited a California federal judge's ruling from September that ordered the EPA to strengthen its regulations.
"The impetus behind the letter is to raise awareness that a judge -- as a result of the seven-year court case -- thinks that we should be concerned with the levels of fluoride in water," Di Saverio said.
The practice of fluoridating drinking water has been routinely linked to eliminating tooth decay in human populations, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But in recent months, some advocacy groups and politicians have called for an end to the practice, citing concerns over its potential effects, despite widespread scientific consensus supporting its safety and effectiveness.
President Donald Trump's recently confirmed health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is an outspoken critic of fluoridation and has claimed without scientific consensus that fluoride in drinking water is linked to various health conditions, including arthritis, bone fractures and reduced IQ. The fluoride debate was largely seen as a fringe issue until Trump's re-election in November.
In New York City the decision would ultimately fall to Mayor Eric Adams, who has said he supports the fluoridation of New York City's water, the New York Times reported. The mayor's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Gothamist.
But even at the community board level, the issue proved too controversial to advance right away.
"I personally am not comfortable with a letter that would recommend removing fluoride entirely - most are just disputing what a healthy level might be," said board member Kian Betancourt, adding that he worried "about blowing this out of proportion."
Board member Athanasios Magoutas, who successfully moved to table the discussion pending further research, also cited skepticism at both the judge's ruling and the community board's role in the debate.
"I don't know that a ruling where a judge says, 'I'm not sure, but maybe the EPA should look at it,' warrants something from the city community board asking the federal government to remove our fluoridation," he said.
Di Saverio pointed to nearby counties, such as Rockland, just north of New York City, and Nassau and Suffolk on Long Island, which do not add fluoride to their drinking water. She said her hope was to remove fluoride not just from Queens, but "wherever possible" throughout the city out of concern for its effects on children, people and pets.
"Why would we want to expose our kids if there is any risk of reduced IQ or any detriment to them?" she said at the board meeting.
Queens, however, does not have an independently sourced water supply. The city's water is sourced primarily from the Catskill/Delaware and Croton watersheds, according to the city Department of Environmental Protection which manages New York's water.
The Catskill/Delaware water supply is one of the few in the nation that operates without filtration, instead using chlorine and ultraviolet light for disinfection at the world's largest UV facility in Westchester County, according to the 2023 Drinking Water Supply & Quality Report.
Additional treatments include phosphoric acid to protect pipes, sodium hydroxide to reduce corrosion and fluoride at the federally approved level of 0.7 milligrams per liter to promote dental health, with 99.9% of the water fluoridated in 2023, the report said.
The Croton supply, processed at an underground filtration plant in the Bronx, undergoes coagulation, dissolved air flotation, filtration and disinfection before being treated with the same additives, ensuring a reliable and high-quality water supply, the DEP said.