HILO, Hawai'i — The Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawai'i Authority has for six years failed to file required quarterly water monitoring reports with the state that are supposed to document that no pollutants are released by NELHA's industrial and aquaculture tenants in Keahole, Kona.

Ron Baird, chief executive officer of NELHA, said the state-owned research and industrial park has a staff of three chemists who have been monitoring water discharges in the park and at coastal areas, and said the park has an "absolutely outstanding" record of protecting the environment.

The scientists monitor water dumped by tenants into sumps, trenches or injection wells, and "what they're looking for is obviously we do not want any nutrients going into the ocean from any of the agricultural activities around here, and so they monitor this," Baird said.

However, NELHA stopped filing the reports required under its state Special Management Area and Conservation District Use Permits in 2000, said Baird, who took control of NELHA in 2005.

A water quality lab manager who oversaw water quality testing at the park was terminated in 2003, and Baird said that scientist was never replaced.

Baird said the state employees on the NELHA lab staff work under a union contract, and filing the quarterly reports with the Department of Health "is not in their job description."

State lawmakers last year approved money for a new lab manager, but Baird said he still has not received clearance from the state Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism to advertise for candidates to fill the position.

Lawmakers last year ordered NELHA to prepare a detailed report on any fines or other sanctions that were imposed on the authority because of the delinquent reports, but Baird said no enforcement action has been taken.

Michael Tsuji, enforcement section supervisor for the state Department of Health's Clean Water Branch, said the only enforcement action pending in his division against NELHA is a consent decree over a 1998 chemical spill at the park that prompted the state to temporarily close a 100-foot portion of the shoreline after witnesses said the spill killed fish.

NELHA has met all the terms of that consent decree, which required that the authority pay a $10,000 fine and agree to perform $90,000 worth of water quality testing for the state at NELHA's water testing laboratory, Tsuji said.

Baird said he obtained $312,000 from the Legislature last year to drill new wells to expand NELHA's environmental monitoring program as part of a stepped up effort to "maintain the quality of the pristine ... waters offshore."

"When you have the density of aquaculture, and you cultivate animals and you're feeding animals, you've got wastes, and the fact that those wastes have been able to be disposed of and not caused any perceptible detection at the entrances to the sea, I think is a real achievement," he said.

NELHA was established in the 1970s as a research facility for ocean thermal energy conversion on a site next to the Kona airport at Keahole. So far 223 acres of the 877-acre park have been leased out to tenants.

The park has become a center for aquaculture research and production, and Baird said there are now 14 aquaculture companies in production. Three more aquaculture companies doing pre-production research, and another four research tenants also work from the park.

NELHA has also become the hub of the state's largest manufactured export product, bottled desalinated seawater. The park has four plants that are in production or are ready to begin production, and two others that are seeking financing, Baird said.

Reach Kevin Dayton at kdayton@honoluluadvertiser.com.