Opponents successfully block move to fluoridate Portland's water

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(Gallery by Randy L. Rasmussen, The Oregonian)

Portland voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected a plan to add fluoride to a water supply serving about 900,000 Oregonians.

According to returns released at 9 p.m., 61 percent of voters were opposed to 39 percent in favor -- a slight, even more negative, shift from 8 p.m. results.

The push to fluoridate the city's water supply initially had heavy support from several areas.

Five Portland city council members had voted to add fluoride to the city water supply. Health advocacy groups lined up behind the cause – as did several groups representing various communities of color. Then there was the fact they'd managed

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And yet, Tuesday evening, the first set of returns showed that even that level support was not enough to persuade Portlanders to embrace fluoridation. If the opponents' lead holds, this would be the fourth time residents rejected fluoridation since the 1950s.

"There's a libertarian component to Oregon politics ... a kind of opposition to what the establishment might want," said Bill Lunch, a political science professor at Oregon State University. "Those who have more money, despite the kind of popular presumptions in this regard, don't always win elections."

In the months leading up to the election, pro-fluoride

focused on making the issue about equity. They pulled together support among communities of color and raised more than $800,000 in cash and in-kind contributions. The group sold fluoridation as a scientifically-sound method for fighting what they called the state's dental crisis, continuously noting that nearly three-fourths of Americans drink fluoridated water.

Despite its financial disadvantage, however,

proved better at mobilizing an electorate wary of adding a chemical to one of the nation's best sources of drinking water. Signs calling for residents to reject "fluoridation chemicals" popped up on lawns across the city even as stories in the national media popped up, poking fun at the city's resistance to a common practice.

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