Fluoridation of Calgary water: expected to be completed in early 2025

The City of Calgary is currently commissioning upgraded water treatment equipment and is scheduled to reintroduce fluoride into the water supply in early 2025.

Calgary’s study comes after several cities, including Montreal, recently voted to remove fluoride from their water systems.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., US President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services. He also said he would recommend removing fluoride from waters across America.

“The City is completing necessary infrastructure improvements at Calgary’s two water treatment plants with the commissioning of equipment,” a statement from Calgary’s water services department says.

Fluoridation of Calgary’s water supply is expected to be completed by the end of the first quarter of next year. The project has been delayed several times and costs have increased since Calgarians voted in favor of fluoridation in a public referendum during the 2021 municipal election.

Calgary held several referendums on the fluoride issue in 1999, 1989, 1971, 1966, 1961 and 1957.

The cost of reintroducing fluoride into Calgary’s water system includes $28 million for treatment plant upgrades and up to $1 million in annual maintenance and operating costs.

James, a University of Calgary professor of medicine, in April. A Dickinson told CTV News rates of dental treatments under anesthesia have increased in Calgary since the removal of fluoridation in the water system.

“We are particularly concerned about the preventable and potentially life-threatening illness, pain, suffering, misery and expense experienced by very young children and their families due to tooth decay,” Dickinson said in an emailed statement at the time.

“Just eight years after fluoridation ended in 2011, children’s need for intravenous antibiotic therapy to prevent death from infection increased by 700 per cent at Alberta Children’s Hospital.”

According to Dickinson, a University of Alberta study shows that the rate of dental treatments under anesthesia in children under five has doubled from 22 per 100,000 in 2010-11 to 45 per 100,000 in 2018-19.

With files from CTV News Calgary’s Brendan Ellis