The Lee Board of County Commissioners on Tuesday (Feb. 4, 2025) voted to discontinue adding fluoride to Lee County Utilities drinking water.
To view the agenda item and its back up material, click here. To view a video of that segment of the regularly scheduled meeting, click here or visit https://youtu.be/joaiJKWdq1Q.
Lee County Utilities (LCU) is one of about 10 utility providers in Lee County, including municipal operations and independent providers. Tuesday’s decision is effective immediately and only impacts LCU customers.
Lee County residents can learn which utility provides their drinking water easily by using Lee County Government’s “Resident Information Lookup” tool, which is on the county’s website at www.leegov.com. Look for the blue box and enter your address. Once the page loads, scroll down to “Utilities.” Another way to learn your utility provider is to look at your monthly billing statement.
Fluoride is an unregulated additive, once strongly recommended by the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP). However, since the Florida Surgeon General publicly opposed its use, FDEP now allows communities to decide whether to use fluoride, with no penalties to the water utilities for discontinuing the program.
Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo was present and spoke at Tuesday’s commission meeting. View his comments using the video link above.
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