BUFFALO, N.Y. — For nearly nine years, since Buffalo city officials quietly stopped adding fluoride to the drinking water, parents and dentists say they’ve seen a spike in tooth decay and dental surgeries for the city’s kids.
During that same time frame – as the city repeatedly missed its own deadlines for re-fluoridating the water – the chairman of Buffalo’s water board spent nearly 300 weekdays away from the office on work trips paid for by taxpayers, an investigation by 2 On Your Side has found.
Oluwole A. “O.J.” McFoy, 49, who has served as Buffalo Water Board chairman since 2007, spent 297 weekdays traveling to various water conferences across the U.S., according to public records analyzed by 2 On Your Side Investigates.
McFoy has traveled to 23 states at an estimated cost of $161,900 to taxpayers since 2016, according to Buffalo Sewer Authority meeting minutes. McFoy disputed that figure but when pressed, could not provide an estimate he thought was more accurate.
McFoy, who in addition to his water board duties – he is not paid a salary for that role – also serves as CEO and general manager of the Sewer Authority, where he makes $130,000 per year, according to SeeThroughNY.
McFoy, an appointee of Mayor Byron W. Brown, took 55 work trips – an average of nearly seven per year – to conferences in Colorado, Arizona, Florida, the California wine country, and 41 other destinations across the nation.
He took eight trips to the nation’s capital, seven to New York City, six to Chicago, and four to New Orleans.
He got his passport stamped not only for trips to Toronto and Montreal but also for an excursion to Germany to attend a conference hosted by the United Nations.
McFoy declined multiple interview requests for this story but defended his travel in a series of email exchanges with 2 On Your Side Investigative Reporter Charlie Specht.
“My position as an executive requires me to travel to continue building and improving our local infrastructure, advocating for grants and ensuring Buffalo residents receive affordable service,” McFoy wrote. “This necessary travel has given Buffalo greater visibility and resulted in innovative projects, partnerships, energy-saving capital programs, and over $250 million in grants in the past five years.”
Brown, through spokesperson Michael DeGeorge, declined an interview request but defended McFoy's travel as necessary to securing grants.
McFoy said he could not comment about whether his travel habits were in part responsible for the city’s failure to fluoridate the water for nearly nine years. He cited a class-action lawsuit in federal court filed by parents who accuse the city of not adequately telling the public about the decision to stop adding fluoride to the water in 2015.
But McFoy said his travel expenses cost taxpayers less than $160,000 because the sewer board approved the trips as “not to exceed” the listed amount. However, McFoy could not provide 2 On Your Side with a figure he thought was more accurate or the documentation to back up such an estimate.
Additionally, the database 2 On Your Side Investigates built to track McFoy’s travel using public records was compiled using conservative estimates. For example, each time sewer board members approved a trip for multiple city officials, 2 On Your Side divided the total amount approved by the number of people taking the trip and only counted McFoy’s share in his total trip costs.
Sewer Authority board members approved 376 travel days for McFoy since 2016. Counting only weekdays, that figure is 297 days. McFoy said he does not take off during the week when he travels on weekends.
Travel increased in last few years
Robert Corp, an attorney representing those parents in court, says he’s not sure whether there is a correlation between McFoy’s travel schedule and the city’s inability to fluoridate its water. But 2 On Your Side’s findings make him wonder.
“Whether that whole delay has been a result of various members of the local water administration taking extravagant travel, I guess that's part of what will come to light in the discovery,” Corp said, referring to the lawsuit.
He added, “If that's a factor in the delay, then that would be really unfortunate, right? The fact that there's dozens of trips going on and not a lot of communication and certainly not a lot of development of answers for this public health crisis is a problem.”
The first indication that city water was no longer being fluoridated was buried in the fine print of the 2015 Water Quality Report, a document that governments are required to file online yearly. “Since June 22, 2015 fluoride has not been added to your drinking water, and we do not expect fluoride addition to be restored before March 1, 2016,” the report stated. The lawsuit states that in other parts of the annual water reports, the city appears to contradict itself by stating that fluoride was found in the city’s water.
The city missed its first deadline and in its 2016 Water Quality Report said December 2017 was the new deadline for restoring fluoride.
McFoy in 2017 took five trips, including a week-long stay in Essen and Bonn, two cities in Germany, for the United Nations Climate Change Conference. Sewer Authority meeting minutes said flights and hotels were provided by the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives. The board approved $900 for “expected ancillary costs.”
The expected fluoride deadline was once again pushed back – to December 2018 – in that year’s Water Quality Report. McFoy’s travel began to increase that year. He took 13 trips to cities including New York, San Antonio, Texas; Boston, Mass.; New Orleans, La.; Chicago, Ill., and Atlanta, Ga.; at a total expense of $21,350 to taxpayers.
In the 2018 Water Quality Report, the deadline for fluoride restoration was pushed back to December 2019. The city in its 2019 Water Quality Report stopped giving a tentative date for the restoration of fluoride.
The global COVID-19 pandemic stifled McFoy’s traveling in 2020 and 2021 when the sewer board approved six trips for $10,000.
In 2022, though, McFoy traveled to 15 conferences – 64 total weekdays for travel – at an expense of $36,250.
The Aspen-Nicholas Water Affordability Roundtable was billed as an “invitation-only roundtable” for “executives, policy makers and thought leaders” who were “focused on transformative changes needed in water resources management.”
McFoy in his email wrote that “anywhere between 1 and 10 individuals” regularly travel using public funds to conferences, “not just myself.”
Sewer Authority minutes show that while McFoy appears to travel more than other employees, the sewer board in 2019 approved a trip to New York City for McFoy and nine others to attend –at a cost not to exceed $25,000.
In 2021, McFoy and eight others attended the Water Environment Federation's Annual Technical Exhibition and Conference in Chicago. Later this year, McFoy and 10 others are scheduled to attend the same yearly conference in New Orleans. That’s expected to cost taxpayers $27,000.
McFoy in his email said his roles at the Buffalo Water Board and the Buffalo Sewer Authority "have nothing to do with each other" even though most of the conferences he attended contained the word "water" in the title.
"My business travel for Buffalo Sewer is in service to Buffalo Sewer and my job as General Manager," he wrote in an email. "My role as Board Chair is voluntary and Buffalo Sewer does not pay for Buffalo Water business. This is not an intricate concept, it's very simple."
Fluoride controversy had no effect
Public disclosure of the fluoride issue last year – and outrage from members of the Buffalo Common Council and local dentists – also did not slow down McFoy’s traveling habits. Four days after Investigative Reporter Charlie Specht broke the news in January 2023 that the city had not been fluoridating its water for eight years, McFoy traveled to Washington, D.C., for a White House event on water infrastructure.
It was one of four trips McFoy took to the nation’s capital in 2023, including the Water and Wastewater Forum, an “invite-only gathering of high-caliber CEOs in the water and wastewater industry.”
McFoy was invited to participate with other “industry leaders” to “further enhance their leadership journey,” according to meeting minutes.
Last year, Mayor Brown said fluoride would be restored by the end of 2023 – a deadline that the city once again missed.
McFoy in 2023 took 17 trips – he was gone from City Hall for a total of 69 weekdays – that cost taxpayers more than $40,000, according to public records.
McFoy and the sewer board chairman took three separate trips to California, including to San Diego, Sacramento, and Sonoma, a city in “the heart of the renowned Sonoma Valley winemaking region.”
This year, McFoy has traveled to New Orleans, La.; Miami, Fla., Austin, Texas; Washington, D.C.; Chapel Hill, N.C.; Pittsburgh, Pa.; Virginia Beach, Va.; Anaheim and Los Angeles, Calif.
Earlier this year, the city said it planned to resume water fluoridation by the end of August.
McFoy did not indicate why that deadline – like the others before it – was missed. But he hinted Friday that fluoride could soon be in the water after a nine-year absence.
“Buffalo Water will be corresponding with the media in the coming days regarding the re-fluoridation capital project,” McFoy said.
If McFoy is to attend such an announcement, he would have to wait until later this week.
From Saturday to Thursday, McFoy will be attending a water forum in Aspen, Colorado.