The Honolulu Board of Water Supply’s manager said Friday that water tested in the aquifer below the Red Hill Underground Fuel Storage Tank Facility is contaminated, pointing out that a monitoring well showed elevated levels of jet fuel components in April — 15 months after a spill of about 27,000 gallons of fuel in January 2014.

But Navy Capt. Dean Tufts, regional engineer for Navy Region Hawaii, said the reading was not proof that jet fuel had leaked into the aquifer and noted that subsequent tests showed no elevated levels.

The disagreement between the Navy and city water officials is the latest in the debate about how worried the public should be about the leak’s impact on Oahu’s groundwater supply.

The statements were made at a meeting of the Red Hill Task Force on Friday — a meeting that was not even supposed to address the Red Hill leak. An Environmental Protection Agency Administrative Order on Consent aimed at ensuring Oahu’s water resources are kept safe, agreed to by various federal and state agencies, was supposed to end the task force’s work on the issue.

But the state Legislature last year asked that the task force continue meeting to look at a series of military field-constructed tanks across the state in addition to the 20 at Red Hill. Tufts reported Friday there are 31 in use and 15 that are temporarily or permanently out of use. The Navy is in the process of removing those that have not been used in a number of years, he said.

Toward the end of Friday’s meeting, however, the conversation returned to the Red Hill leak. David Yomes, chairman of the Aliamanu/Salt Lake/Foster Village Neighborhood Board, said he’s frustrated that the public continues to get mixed signals from government officials.

"The community is getting confused," Yomes said. "If the water is safe, let’s put out the truth so the community doesn’t have to be afraid. "

Board of Water Supply Manager Ernest Lau said drinking water sources nearest the Red Hill petroleum tanks, which have been tested quarterly since the leak, have not shown signs of petroleum contamination.

However, he said, "The data is showing that the groundwater … near the facility … is showing signs of petroleum contamination and chemicals from petroleum."

He added, "Our concern is that at some point in the future, will this migration fuel that has leaked from the Red Hill facility, and may be leaking, be detected in our drinking water wells?"

April testing of monitoring well No. 2, the one nearest the tanks, showed levels of up to 5,250 parts per billion total petroleum hydrocarbon diesel, Lau said. The acceptable level is 4,500 parts per billion.

That same well also showed elevated levels during the time of the 2013-2014 leak, Lau said. "For whatever reason, and we don’t know the answer and I’m not going to speculate, the level of diesel fuel contamination in that well has gone back up."

Navy officials interpreted the situation differently.

After the April spike they tested the well again in June and recorded levels of 3,800 parts per billion, and then again in July and recorded levels of 3,900 and 3,200 parts per billion, said Aaron Poentis, director of the Navy’s Regional Environmental Department.

Tufts appeared visibly uncomfortable with Lau’s characterization of the water as contaminated.

"I would say there are traces of petroleum constituents under the tanks in the aquifer — not moving, not persistent and not going in the direction that groundwater flows, which is directly toward the Navy’s drinking water shaft at Red Hill shaft 3,000 feet away," he said. "We have monitoring wells to make sure that those constituents aren’t moving … toward any drinking water source."

Tufts said naphthalene, one of the compounds that make up jet fuel, was detected in the monitoring well next to the tanks "one time in 2013. … I don’t know if that was from Red Hill or not."

The same monitoring well has been tested, as has drinking water from the nearby Navy water shaft, quarterly since that time, and "never has anybody been in any danger of having tainted drinking water. … That’s the inference I’m hearing, and that’s just not a true statement," he added.

Lau and environmental organizations have objected to the agreement reached by the Navy, the EPA and the state Department of Health, arguing that it does too little over too long a period of time.