By Amy Batista, Special Writer
HIGHTSTOWN — The Borough Council launched an investigation last week to ascertain why residents were not told until March that fluoride had been discontinued from the drinking water supply since September 2010.
The investigation is being led by Council Members Robert Thibault and Susan Bluth.
Council Members Thibault and Bluth met on Tuesday evening to further discuss where the investigation was heading.
”It is an ongoing process right now,” said Mr. Thibault said on March 27. “We are currently meeting and discussing the investigation right now and have no comments at this time.”
Residents were notified in late March via an alert posted on the borough’s website that fluoridation of the public drinking supply had stopped nearly 18 months prior.
”The borough did notify a Department of Environmental Protection field inspector in September 2010 that it was discontinuing (the addition of) fluoride to the water,” said Press Officer Lawrence Hajna of the DEP, as previously reported last week in the Herald. “The field inspector did not realize that this triggered public notification. The public notification requirement comes from another part of the DEP, the Bureau of Safe Drinking Water.”
He said that not many purveyors in New Jersey include fluoride and it is very infrequent that a water supplier decides to stop adding fluoride.
The DEP requires water system operators to advise the public when it stops fluoridating water, as previously reported in the Herald.
Mayor Steven Kirson and Borough Administrator Michael Theokas said at the March 19 Borough Council meeting that they only found out a few weeks ago about the fluoride-free change — and immediately took steps to inform the public.
”What we’ve done is (we have) gone back to September 2010 monthly reports and followed up with the DEP and they were filed,” Mayor Kirson said. “I want to make that very clear.”
”We reached out to the DEP to find out what had to be done,” Mayor Kirson said. “Our water department needed to come forward with the proper wording for the water notification.”
Mayor Kirson said that there was a broken pipe that needs to be fixed. The pipe itself is not expensive to fix but the problem lies in that it might require shutting down the whole plant to fix this pipe.
Mayor Kirson explained that he is waiting for the additional work to be done on the Water Treatment Plant and as those repairs are done, the repair to the pipe, that adds the fluoridation doses, will be made sometime this year.
”We have been in compliance with everything we have been doing,” said Mr. Theokas. “We have not been cited for anything.”
Mr. Theokas did mention that because fluoride is very corrosive substance and that the Borough Council and Water Treatment Plant staff must decide together if fluoride should be continued.
”There is no obligation to fluoridate the water. It’s not a law or statute on the books right now,” Mr. Theokas said.
Susan Bluth, a council member, questioned Mayor Kirson as to why the public had not been informed of the change sooner.
”Why was the public not told until March 2012?” Councilwoman Bluth asked. “Isn’t there a duty to inform? What about all the parents who believed that their children are getting fluoride in the water.”
”The only way I can respond to this is that I only found out about this a few weeks ago. I don’t know why we didn’t know that we had that obligation,” Mayor Kirson said.
”This is very serious,” Ms. Bluth said as she called for an investigation.
”As liaison to the Board of Health, I got a notice and e-mail from our health officer about this that we should suddenly notify the public,” said Councilman Thibault. “Our health officer got an anonymous call Feb. 1 saying that Hightstown stopped fluoridating the water 18 months ago.”
Councilman Thibault stated, “Eighteen months is a long time not to get fluoride treatments.”
Council Members Bluth and Thibault volunteered to serve on a committee to investigate where things went wrong.
Fluoridation is not required in New Jersey, as previously reported in the Herald.
To learn more on fluoride operations in New Jersey, visit www.nj.gov/dep/watersupply/fluoride_pws.pdf.

