On Tuesday the Tucson City Council approved a motion that will let Tucson Water make a plan for how they are going to spend money related to water conservation and PFAS, which are long lasting chemicals that the EPA says can be linked to harmful health effects.
However, Tucson Water stressed PFAS are not currently in the water people are using or drinking. They said thats because they havent been using the aquifer that has had PFAs for years but some groundwater still has PFAS.
Tucson Water Director John Kmiec said that groundwater is Northwest of the Tucson Airport and Davis Monthan Air Force Base. He said the City has been talking with the U.S. EPA and the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality about PFAS in our system.
He said the agencies sent a letter to TIA and Davis Monthan about how they can fix the issue.
The directive from the regulatory agencies is to eventually make Tucson and the City of Tucson whole for the money that weve expended in avoiding the PFAS issue or dealing with it, Kmiec said.
Tucson Mayor Regina Romero said that money should be over 28 million dollars.
Tucson Water also got over 23 million dollars from the Water Infrastructure Finance Authority of Arizona and that money is going to go towards a new water treatment plant on the northwest side.
Thats where they shut down seven wells, mostly in Marana because of PFAS. That water will go back to the community.
Kmiec also said they got a 3 million dollar grant from WIFA and thats going to be paying for smart meters so that people can see how much water theyre using. He said this is phase one of a project where Tucson Water is going to be moving all of their meters to those smart meters.