The Buffalo Water Board says it will resume adding fluoride to the city’s public drinking water by the end of August, nine years after the city quietly stopped adding the cavity-fighting mineral.
“During August 2024 Buffalo Water plans to complete the process of Operator and Safety Training, with the goal to start up production and commissioning the resumption of fluoride by the end of August 2024,” the water board said in a March 13 letter to the Buffalo Common Council.
The Buffalo Water Board stopped adding the cavity-fighting mineral to the water system in 2015 and did not adequately notify the public for more than seven years, The Buffalo News revealed in 2023.
In January, Buffalo Water said it would restore fluoride to the city’s water supply by the summer, after getting approval in early January from the state Health Department.
The March 13 letter to the Common Council outlined the timeline for implementation.
After the state DOH approval was obtained, Buffalo Water started meeting with engineers, consultants and Veolia Water – the manager of the city’s water system – to coordinate implementation of the approved plan, the letter said.
Buffalo Water has started the process of installing water pumps, flow meters and other equipment needed to operate the new fluoride infrastructure in Buffalo’s public water system.
“The current plan envisions that all installations will be completed by July 2024,” Buffalo Water’s letter said.
It noted Buffalo Water plans to invite the DOH to inspect the completed project in July.
City water officials said they were beginning to upgrade an outdated fluoride system in 2016, but halted that effort when the lead water crisis happened in Flint, Mich. That crisis caused many municipal water suppliers to examine their treatment processes. Buffalo Water wanted to study whether the planned new fluoride system would cause corrosion to the system’s many lead pipes,…
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