Del Norte Clean Water Coalition

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Currently Crescent City, California, is adding a toxic industrial waste product called hydrofluosilicic acid to our water and calling it fluoride. This chemical soup has never been tested for safety for human or animal consumption and no agency designed to protect us from ingesting toxic chemicals will vouch for it's safety.

When you mention fluoride or fluoridation to most people they think of toothpaste or a visit to their dentist. Not many people would think of a factory producing toxic chemicals in fertilzer production, but that's the reality when talking about water fluoridation. The fluoride being added to our community's drinking water does not come from a tube of toothpaste, nor is it dispensed from a pharmacy or dentist's office. It comes directly from the smoke stacks of phosphate fertilzer manufacture. Below is a description of the process written by a former employee of a phosphate fertilizer manufacturer. This person is now dead from his exposure to these chemicals.

There are many factors involved in the creation of the FSA. Once an insight is gained about how the phosphoric acid is made, the FSA becomes even more frightening. Other chemicals are added such as oil based defoamers (possibly containing dioxins), polymers, petroleum products, naphthalene, chlorides, sulfides, Synspar and various reagents. During the phosphoric acid concentration processes, these added chemicals and inherent toxic contaminants common in phosphate rock are boiled off the acid in a partial vacuum at very high temperatures, about 500 degrees F. The vapors from all these chemicals are washed and captured in the pollution scrubbers along with the fluorine and fluorosilicate gases.

Sulfuric acid is produced at these facilities, and the spent vanadium pentoxide catalyst, production sludge and waste water are dumped into the evaporation (settling) ponds. Evaporation ponds are the catch-all for almost all toxic wastes. Radioactive scale from reaction vessels and filters, phosphoric acid sludges, radioactive fluorosilicates chipped from scrubbing pads and chambers, and general toxic wastes are tossed into the mix. (Click here for complete document - PDF)

We can only wish our own council* were so wise as Keith Beier. a councilman from Escondidto, California, who made the following observation:

"I wasn't elected to sit idly by, or to provide political cover, for state legislators that rubber-stamp industry's attempt to recycle hazardous waste by dumping it into our drinking water," said Escondido Council Member Keith Beier.

"Our water department calculates that we would be buying more than 33 tons/year of a substance that can't be given to us for free because it is classified as a toxic hazardous waste; yet, we are supposed to accept that, if we pay $0.35 per gallon and they slap a new label on the container, this same toxic waste can be shipped to us untreated, directly from the scrubber systems of the phosphate fertilizer industry that they use to keep fluorine from becoming airborne and killing everything in sight, and that on the truck-ride here it will magically be converted to a safe and desirable nutrient."

"The kicker to this scheme is that the amount intended for the targeted children is only 16 pounds of that 33 tons."

*Councilwoman Donna Westfall has consistently voted against the continuation of fluoridation.

In June, 2011, Crescent City's city council members received a 25-page Actual and Constructive Notice informing them of the toxic nature of our fluoridation chemical, hydrofluosilicic acid. Even with all this factual information delivered to them, all but one cling to the notion that the practice of injecting our water supply with toxic industrial waste is a good idea.

Read the notice here, and then ask them why they still support injecting toxic industrial waste into our water system. The water supplied to the public should be clean and safe for all to consume, but they know it's not yet they do nothing.

The council was also advised that infant formula should not be mixed with fluoridated tap water and a request was made to have the warning printed on the annual water report, at minimum. They refused. How many children have been harmed due to their neglegence?

National Research Council: "Crippling skeletal fluorosis might occur in people who have ingested 10-20 mg of fluoride per day for 10-20 years [the same total quantity as 5-10 mg/day for 20-40 years]."

U.S. Public Health Service: "Table indicates that in U.S. cities having one part per million fluoride in their water supply, the range in total daily fluoride intake exceeds 6.5 milligrams daily."

More harm for some groups:
Person's with kidney disease, diabetes, coronary disease, infants, children under 6, people with autoimmune disorders, Latinos, African Americans, Native Americans, all are more susceptible to the harm of hydrofluosilicic acid. When the city council was asked to include warnings on the annual water report, they refused.

During the campaign of 2010, the California Dental Association gave $25,000 to the opposition of Measure A, the anti-fluoridation initiative.

We spent just under $2000, and we lost by only 134 votes. With your help we can easily defeat the corporate money machine and get the toxic industrial waste out of our water.

Join the coalition today! Volunteer, donate, spread the word: The City of Crescent City has pulled the classic "bait and switch." They tell us it's "fluoride" but we know, it's toxic industrial waste!!!