AES Hawaii files
inaccurate reports
and pays the price

---

By Pat Gee
Star-Bulletin

AES Hawaii, an electricity-generating facility in Kapolei, was fined $45,430 for failing to file accurate reports on three releases of toxic chemicals in 1998.

It was the first year the company was required to report chemicals under the federal Environmental Protection Agency's new rules, and "administratively, we screwed up," said Kevin Pierce, president and general manager.

New rules required that electricity-generating facilities like AES report what chemicals are "released" or discarded. In the past, only manufacturing companies had to submit reports, according to Adam Browning, one of the EPA inspectors who visited the Campbell Industrial Park facility in May 1999.

This was the first action in the nation taken against an electric utility under the Toxic Release Inventory Program, and the EPA's purpose is to get "people to take the reporting requirements seriously," he said.

Each year the EPA publishes a community right-to-know report entitled, "The Toxic Release Inventory Public Data Release," which summarizes each company's previous year's submissions.

AES "didn't get it right, they didn't have the right information at hand," Browning said.

The three chemicals "underreported" included zinc compounds, chlorine and sulfuric acid.

AES also "overreported" its release of some chemicals for 1998 to make sure it was not underreporting these items, Pierce said. But as a result the facility was mistakenly named the largest emitter in Hawaii, reporting that it released a total of 1.17 million pounds of chemicals that year.

But the most recent TRI report for the year 1999 dropped AES to eighth place statewide with 82,000 pounds of chemicals released into the environment.

"We got good numbers now. We've gotten smarter and better. I don't think there will be any more problems with the EPA," Pierce said.