Fluoride ruling will save young teeth

Congratulations to the Government on having the common sense to introduce the mandatory fluoridation of Whangārei town water supply.

It would have been good to see council do this voluntarily but it’s quite understandable they did not when faced with well-meaning but misleading opposition. After all, they are politicians who are naturally averse to controversy.

It has been said that fluoridation is a waste of money when only four per cent of the water is drunk, but there are no complaints when chlorine is added. As with fluoride, most water does not require chlorine for safety, but for the small proportion that is drunk, it is essential.

There is overwhelming evidence that fluoridated water improves children’s dental health by some 40 per cent while adverse effects are negligible. It is only harmful in much higher concentrations.

Fluoride tablets in school would be great if it was practical. For a start they would miss out during the six-week summer holiday and only giving them to children whose parents gave permission would be a bureaucratic nightmare.

We are talking about children from vulnerable and deprived families. One could say that to deny them avoiding miserable pain is both miserly and mean-spirited.

Even though those who are not on town supply will miss out, it is humane to at least provide fluoride to some children rather than none. Colin Edwards

Parua Bay

EVs come with issues

I am somewhat perplexed at the Government’s fervent desire to change the vehicle fleet of New Zealand to electric at this point in time.

Don’t get me wrong — I am a big fan of cleaner, more efficient vehicles. Particularly in large cities where cleaner air is a big plus, and smaller journeys are generally undertaken. In fact my next vehicle will likely be a hybrid (not fully electric) But there are a couple of very obvious issues that most have not looked at.

The first is the actual power required to run these vehicles. For many years New Zealand has had issues with electricity distribution, especially in the winter months when all the heat pumps and electric blankets are turned on. We need only go back a few weeks when the last set of issues were announced on the main news channels.

This begs the question, if we cannot adequately deliver power now, with a very small fleet of electric vehicles, how on earth will we manage when the fleet is extensive?

It is also common knowledge that electric vehicles are at their best when charged at home. You have a dedicated power point in the garage and, when you arrive home, you plug in overnight and the next day you are ready to go. The big problem here is that the chargers themselves run on a very large power delivery system, usually requiring a different type of circuit. Almost every street in New Zealand currently does not have the architecture to handle this, a few cars on every street is okay, but when it is most cars on every street, this system will fail.

The next issue is around road user charges (RUC). Today it is only diesel vehicles who have to contend with this. But in the very near future it will need to be rolled out across all electric vehicles too. The reason for this is that there will be a large reduction in fuel purchases and there is a massive amount of tax taken from fuel sales. This tax apparently is used for roading and infrastructure and, with electric vehicles, that infrastructure will need to consider electricity delivery as well as roading.

Add to that the fact we cannot deliver enough electricity today, this cost will likely need to go into building more power stations at a massive cost to the nation. Also how would the Government tax hybrid vehicles, where it is impossible to tell how much of your journey was electric and how much was petrol/ diesel?

We can only guess as to what these charges will be, but it is safe to assume it will be larger than the diesel RUC charges. Once you own the vehicle, you will have no choice but to pay what the amount is.

I wonder if the Government’s excitement might be better utilised in giving the same sort of rebate to home owners, in order to install solar power. This has been done in many countries around the world with exceptionally good outcomes. This would relieve the national grid of the excesses we are currently seeing, and provide the backfill for charging electric vehicles. Trevor Holland

Whangārei

Save the cement works

Oh no, not another hair brained scheme — Portland cement works proposed closure due to changes to the emissions trading scheme. Really?

This closure will jeopardise our community. There would not only be hundreds of job losses but also loss of council revenue.

With the situation worsening in Europe, would it not be prudent to retain these industries and keep them functioning to retain some degree of industrial independence? Would this closure not leave us open to further shortages of much-needed materials? We have already lost the refinery. This to me just doesn’t make sense or is this just another example of Ardern having her strings pulled from a much higher level?

Is not our Portland cement works one of the most efficient low-carbon producers in the world?

There will be no winners if this proposed closure proceeds.

This current council needs to lobby central government to let them know we the ratepayers are totally opposed to this idea.

Marie Olsen

Whangārei