PORT ANGELES –The City Council took the final step Tuesday night to approve the environmental permit for the city’s fluoridation project.
But not before one of the two City Council members who opposed the project complained about “power politics” and predicted that fluoridation would become a campaign issue in next year’s council elections.
The council’s action means the city now can authorize the Washington Dental Services Foundation to begin engineering for the project.
The foundation will design and build the fluoridation plant then gift it to the city.
The same fluoridation opponents who appealed the project’s environmental permit to the City Council have vowed to sue in Clallam County Superior Court once the city issues a building permit for the project.
The council voted 6-1 in February 2003 to accept a $260,000 grant from the Washington Dental Services Foundation to fund water fluoridation and public education efforts.