The Army has decided to add further study to a long-stalled Makua Valley environmental report that has been in the works since 2001, when the service first agreed to do the analysis as part of a court settlement.

A supplemental draft environmental impact statement is expected to be released on or about Friday.

Ultimately, the Army hopes to resume live-fire training in the 4,190-acre Wai'anae Coast valley — something it has not been able to do for the past four years as a result of the legal requirement.

The Army, in a news release, said new developments since 2005 — when the report's first draft was released — have necessitated a new draft.

Those include analyzing the cumulative impact of stationing additional Army units and Stryker combat vehicles in Hawai'i; additional clearance of unexploded ordnance to expand cultural access at Makua Military Reservation; and Army responses to a 2007-08 biological opinion regarding Makua, the service said.

"Several changes were made to the initial draft environmental impact statement in response to public comments," said Maj. Gen. Raymond Mason, senior commander of Army installations in Hawai'i.

The new draft will have a 45-day public comment period, and public meetings will be held on O'ahu and the Big Island. The Army said times, dates and locations for the meetings still are being finalized.

With those public comments, the Army said it will develop a final environmental impact statement.

The additional study conflicts with comments made in January by the former head of U.S. Army Pacific, who said the Makua study had been finalized. Why the issue is being revisited is unclear.

Earthjustice attorney David Henkin, who has represented community group Malama Makua before and after the 2001 settlement, yesterday said he had not been told by the Army of the supplemental study.

"I haven't seen it," Henkin said. "But if it's a supplemental draft, then that suggests that they recognize that there are things that were not adequately addressed in their 2005 draft — which I agree with."

Henkin said he and his clients have to take a "wait and see" approach.

Henkin said he also expects to see in a final environmental impact statement an examination of creating a replacement live-fire training facility for Makua at Pohakuloa Training Area on the Big Island — something the Army previously agreed to do but Henkin said he didn't see in the 2005 draft.

The Army also agreed to put out for public comment and review studies of the impacts of military training on marine resources, including shellfish and limu, as well as archaeological surveys within the south firebreak road, Henkin said. He said neither has been done.

Makua Valley has been used by the military since the 1920s.

Malama Makua wants to return the valley, with more than 40 endangered species and 100 archaeological features, to traditional Hawaiian uses.

Lt. Gen. Benjamin R. Mixon, commander of U.S. Army Pacific headquartered at Fort Shafter, in July said the Army has made up for lost training at Makua by extending training on the Big Island, at the National Training Center in California and in Kuwait before deployment into Iraq.

"This has come at greater expense to the taxpayer and more time away from home for our active, Guard and Reserve soldiers," Mixon said.