Email Shows Bronson’s Comms Director Knew Mayor Ordered Fluoride off Day It Happened
Records provided to the leadership of the Anchorage Assembly in response to their December 2021 request for information from the Bronson Administration demonstrate that communications director Corey Allen Young was informed in an October 1, 2021, email that Anchorage Mayor David Bronson directed AWWU Eklutna's staff to stop dosing Anchorage's water supply with fluoride. Former Bronson chief of staff Sami Graham was cc'd on the email sent to Young.
The email raises questions about why Young initially flatly denied to media outlets last December (after news of the fluoride story broke) that Bronson had ordered AWWU staff to stop adding fluoride to the city's water system when Young knew in October that Bronson had given the order to do so.
The email sent to Young by deputy municipal manager Kolby Hickel also claimed that Bronson's actions to stop dosing the city's water supply with fluoride would save $100k in chemical costs per year and $1 million in upgrade and capital costs.
In her email, Hickel claimed that the decision to stop dosing Anchorage's water supply was a "health and safety issue" for employees who work with the chemical.
Also included in the emails Hickel sent Young were photographs taken from Mayor Bronson's tour of the AWWU Eklutna Water Treatment Plant. One such picture Hickel provided Young shows a singular bag of fluopray, an agent added to the city's water supply, sitting dramatically beneath a poison warning sign. Fluopray is not produced in the United States and must be imported from Belgium.
An October 1 text message exchange between Hickel and AWWU manager Mark Corsentino on the morning of Mayor Bronson's October 1 visit to the water plant was also included in the documents provided to Assembly Leadership.
According to the exchange, Hickel texted Corsentino at 12:49 p.m., telling him to "be ready to speak on the fluoride issue."
"No problem," Corsentino responded. Later, Corsentino texted Hickel a photograph of a bag of fluopray.
Last December, Assembly Leadership asked for information following allegations published by the Alaska Landmine, who, citing anonymous sources, alleged that Mayor Dave Bronson's administration inappropriately pressured former Anchorage Police Chief Ken McCoy and had interfered with the fluoridation of Anchorage's water.
The images and documents included in this post stem from the Bronson administration's release of information requested by Assembly Leadership.
