Fluoride Removal from City Water Will Begin Tomorrow

Taylor Zavala
News Director

The addition of Fluoride to San Marcos drinking water is expected to stop tomorrow.

The Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority (GBRA), will end the practice of adding fluoride to the City of San Marcos Water Treatment Plant, where fluoride levels are expected to drop to natural levels within the next few days.

The elimination of added fluoride to the San Marcos water is a result of the approval of proposition 1, which directed the city to stop adding fluoride to the municipal water supply.

The proposition was added to the San Marcos ballot after the Fluoride-Free San Marcos Coalition activists turned in a petition with roughly 1,600 voter signatures, enough signatures to force an amendment to the city charter.

Originally the City of San Marcos considered the petition invalid, arguing the petition did not meet City guidelines for petition submission. After a lawsuit was filed by the City against 3 individual petition submissioners, the petitioners filed a counter-suit, where Hays County Judge Bruce Boyer ruled in favor of the petitioners, and the City filed a notice of appeal. The case still sits in appeals court.

However, in August the San Marcos City Council place proposition 1 on the November ballot,  where the proposition passed with 60.73% of votes.  Petition submissioner Sam Brannon said he is very excited the City will be following through with the removal, saying “I’m thrilled. That’s exactly what we wanted, we wanted them to do it quickly as possible and it appears there that’s what they have in mind.”

Brannon hopes the City will see the removal of fluoridation as a selling point for San Marcos, emphasizing “The City of San Marcos can now call itself a clean water community, this is a very big step, it’s a historic step and on this whole corridor between San Antonio and Austin, we’re in the unique position of saying we’re a clean water city, we do not fluoridate our water.”

The City has already begun working to insure they’re prepared to to modify water treatment, where Director of the City of San Marcos Water-Wastewater Utility Department says “Residents should not experience any change to the water’s taste or odor.”