A Jefferson County judge has issued a temporary restraining order requiring Central Alabama Water to resume adding fluoride to the drinking water and set a hearing for Thursday to consider the matter further.
Circuit Court Judge Frederic Allen Bolling ruled in a case filed by the city of Birmingham that CAW had failed to notify the state health officer of its plans to discontinue adding fluoride to the water 90 days in advance, as required by state law.
Central Alabama Water has been under fire since announcing March 20 that it had stopped fluoridating water at the Shades Mountain Filter Plant. A spokesperson for the Alabama Department of Public Health told AL.com that CAW notified the agency only eight days prior.
According to utility spokesman John Matson, fluoridation at the other three treatment plants in the system stopped between 2023 and 2024 due to maintenance failures under prior leadership, before the state Legislature almost a year ago restructured the utility and its leadership. Matson said it would have been unfair for only one plant to fluoridate water while the others were nonfunctional.
Bolling’s order applies systemwide — to the Shades Mountain, Putnam, Carson, and Western filter plants — and requires the utility to take all necessary steps to restore operations.
The judge mandated that if equipment needs to be ordered to restore the filter plants to operational capacity, that equipment must be ordered; if extra work hours need to be approved, those work hours must be approved.
In granting the order, the court found the city demonstrated “immediate and irreparable harm” to residents if the utility continued operating in violation of the law. The court further found that this disregard for state law has already harmed customers and ratepayers and would likely continue absent intervention.
Although not required at this stage, the court also signaled that the remaining legal standards for an injunction may be met after a full hearing. The order rejects the utility’s argument that complying with the law would impose an undue financial burden.
CAW has said that fluoridation systems at its water treatment plants are near the end of their useful life cycles and eventually would require replacement at a cost of nearly $4 million. Recurring maintenance costs have been more than $250,000 per year.
The city’s lawsuit challenging the fluoridation decision is one of multiple suits pending against the utility since it was reorganized almost a year ago. A federal judge also is considering a broader request to issue a temporary restraining order to undo recent actions at Central Alabama Water and limit future moves in a case that cites mass layoffs and expansion of a new chief executive officer’s authority to make decisions without board oversight.