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P RELUDE :
AN IN F O R M A T I V E BL O G WR I T T E N BY JA M E S A . MOL N A R TO IN T E N T I ON A L L Y FO R C E TH E RE A D E R TO HOL D TW O OR
M O R E O P P O S E D I D E A S I N T H E I R M I N D S A T O N C E (K N O W N V . S U N K N O W N ) , W H I L E S T I L L B E I N G A B L E T O R E M A I N
AT FU L L COG N IT IV E FU N CT I ON . ON CE ACH IE V E D , I ASK RE A D E RS TO DO THE I R OW N RE S E AR CH AN D ON L Y THE N ;
CRE A T E AN IN FO RM A T I V E CON C LU S I ON FO R TH E M S EL V E S BY US I N G ON L Y TH E KN O WL E D G E OB T AI N E D AN D
UNDERSTOOD FULLY .
The year is 2014. I’m headed to the Water Treatment Center in Alliance, OH for an
environmental studies college course. My professor is excited because he has a question
he’s been waiting to ask for a very long time. Fast forward, we arrive at the Water
Treatment Center. A few steps in and we’re suddenly bombarded with a foul smell of
mildew mixed with what smelt like toxic waste. The whole class is holding their noses at
this point - while we casually walk by a giant container of city water? This is what we’re
smelling? A slight fog of confusion arose in my mind as reality began to set in. I pondered
these thoughts:
We enter the main building where the water is actually filtered, tested, and then sent out
for consumption within the city. The smell is still lingering in there but less potent at this
particular moment. At this point, the entire class is becoming disengaged and uninterested.
However, my professor is enjoying himself, talking up a storm and getting ready to ask his
long awaited question. We were all ready.
MY PROFESSOR ASKS THE FOLLOWING Q UESTION :
“Why do you add sodium fluoride to the water supply when it’s common knowledge
that it is highly toxic and potentially deadly? Why do you add Fluoride to our water supply
when Its proven that It does not protect your teeth cosmetically, and only reduces cavities
by < 20% in children and < 10% in adults?” The tour guide (who was a full time operator)
looks at my professor in the eye and answers “I don’t know. I really don’t know why we do
it.” The whole class was engaged now, but in a slight awe at the response.
His inability to even generate some kind of relative response was a mind buster in it’s
own entity. But, he was shook. He had no answer for us. It became obvious he never even
asked himself about what he was doing. But he shouldn’t have had to, ever. It’s unfair to
him and most importantly society. It’s quite pathetic that an individual laboring in a facility
responsible for providing clean drinking water to citizens was so uninformed that he
couldn’t answer a simple process question pertaining to a chemical that has been added to
the water supply and apart of the SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) for almost 70 years.
On that particular day, I can’t say I knew the relevance of that trip. I didn’t know his
response to our professor’s question would lead me to where I am now - writing an article
5 years later. It wasn’t the tour guide’s negligence that sat with me negatively, but instead
it was the entire operation.