The campaign to remove fluoride from municipal water in Durango is severely misguided and appeals only to voters’ fear.
Cheri Jones, in her letter (Herald, Mar. 18), claims that calcium fluoride (naturally occurring in Durango water) is safe while sodium fluoride is not. But this claim has little basis in reality or in chemistry.
Since both ionic compounds completely dissolve at 0.7 ppm (calcium fluoride has a solubility in water of 1.5 mg/L, so it completely dissolves at this level), what is really present in the water is fluoride anions and metal cations.
The only difference between a solution of calcium fluoride and sodium fluoride at 0.7ppm is that the metal cations are calciums, not sodiums. The fluoride anions in solution act exactly the same way.
So, either Jones believes that sodium is a neurotoxin, which is clearly not true, or her assertion makes absolutely no sense.
In addition, if the pro-1A camp believes that all forms of fluoride are dangerous, shouldn’t they work further to remove naturally occurring calcium fluoride from our water, since 30 percent by mass of the fluorides in our water are calcium fluoride?
Clean Water Durango claims that “no dose of a toxic poison is safe,” so why aren’t they pushing for the removal of natural fluoride from our water?
Oskar Searfus
Durango
