NSF and Standard 60 | Clean Water Sonoma-Marin

NSF & Standard 60

NSF International, formerly the National Sanitation Foundation, is tasked with providing accredited third-party certification of water fluoridation chemicals to insure that they comply with the technical requirements of NSF/ANSI Standard 60.

The Mosaic Company “is the world’s leading producer and marketer of concentrated phosphate and potash…[mining] phosphate rock from nearly 200,000 acres of Mosaic-owned land in Central Florida, and…four mines in North America, primarily in Saskatchewan.” Not incidentally, Mosaic is also one of the world’s largest suppliers of a byproduct (formerly a waste product) of phosphate fertilizer manufacture, NSF/ANSI certified Hydrofluorosilicic Acid (FSA or HFS) for water fluoridation.

Read and download NSF Fact Sheet on Fluoridation Chemicals (PDF), the standard reference (2013).

Read and download other documents on fluoridation additives, and the toxic contaminants most commonly found in association with them, at Water Fluoridation Chemicals.

Brief NSF Timeline
1944     The National Sanitation Foundation (NSF) founded
1963     NSF opens regional offices.
1965    Plastics Piping and Wastewater Treatment Programs start.
1967    NSF Testing Laboratories becomes a not-for-profit corporation.
1984    Bottled Water Program starts; Health Advisory Board is established.
1985    As with the Water Treatment and Distribution Systems Program (1980), in an era of wholesale government privatization, the NSF Drinking Water Additives Program starts with a cooperative agreement from the U.S. EPA.
1990    NSF and NSF Testing Laboratories merge to form NSF International; Company name changes from National Sanitation Foundation to NSF International.*
1996    NSF is selected as a Collaborating Centre on Drinking Water Safety and Treatment by the World Health Organization (WHO).

NOTE: To understand some of NSF’s size and reach, see the full NSF Timeline.

*NSF explains its name:“Founded in 1944 as the National Sanitation Foundation, we changed our name to NSF International in 1990 as we expanded our services beyond sanitation and into global markets. The letters in our organization’s name do not represent any specific words today.”

NSF accredited third-party certification provides all stakeholders – industry, regulators, users and the general public – assurance that a certified product, material, component or service complies with the technical requirements of the referenced standard.

The NSF certification process is specific to the product, process or service being certified and the type of certification, but generally follows seven steps:
1. Application and information submission
2. Product evaluation
3. Product testing in lab
4. Manufacturing facility inspection, production confirmation and product sampling
5. Test results review and acceptance
6. Contract signed and products listed
7. Annual plant inspection and retesting

NSF/ANSI STANDARD 60 PROVIDES THE REGULATORY GUIDELINES FOR WATER FLUORIDATION ADDITIVES

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Access a PDF of NSF/ANSI Standard 60 Drinking Water Chemicals – Health Effects (2015)

Obtaining NSF Standards
As a public service, complimentary copies of NSF standards are available to regulators only and may be requested by completing our general inquiry form. Only one NSF standard may be requested per submission. The requester must attest that they are an active member of the federal, state or local regulatory community. The request must also agree not to share or distribute these copyrighted standards outside of their agency.

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