By Parker Leavitt| The Arizona Republic
A Gilbert water official has filed a $750,000 discrimination claim against the town after, she says, management retaliated against her for publicly exposing a prolonged stoppage of voter-mandated fluoridation.
Water-quality supervisor Dipti Shah claims she discovered in 2011 that Gilbert was no longer pumping fluoride into the water supply at one of its two treatment plants and made note of that in the town’s annual consumer-confidence report last year.
Safety concerns had prompted town water officials to shut down the fluoride pump after the system began spewing a white powder, which was later tested and deemed a potential health hazard to employees.
Word of the shutdown never made it to the highest levels of town management, and the pump sat unused for more than a year. Gilbert has since hired a contractor to rebuild the system, and fluoridation recommenced in February.
Shah claims it was her disclosure of the fluoridation stoppage that brought the issue to the public’s attention, prompting an outcry from residents and the departure of the town’s public-works director and water manager.
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