But the utility’s reliance on the wrong sampling point drew sharp criticism from City Council members Steve Kozachik and Regina Romero.

The mistake was “cavalier,” given the city’s longstanding history with water pollution and the community’s sensitivity to it, said Kozachik. Last summer, he was the first city official to tell the public about contamination of other city wells by the same compounds.

“Is it embarrassing? Yeah,” acknowledged Jeff Biggs, Tucson Water’s administrator for strategic initiatives. But, he said, the city had questioned the discrepancy in the pollution levels it was finding and reacted immediately once it learned of the mistake.

“We investigated and we made operational changes to lower the level (of contamination) that we served to the public,” Biggs said.

Kozachik noted that city officials “stand in front of the community all the time, saying that we’re taking seriously our well monitoring, that we’re doing this testing, that we’ve spent tens of millions of dollars” on the treatment plant.

“Then to say that we were monitoring the wrong water main, and we didn’t know where water is coming from is cavalier,” said Kozachik, whose Ward 6 includes much of the downtown area that got PFAS-contaminated water.