A new Army environmental report examining the marine impact of 60 years of military training in Makua Valley found little difference in contaminants near Makua compared to "background" test sites at Nanakuli and Sandy Beach, the Army said.

David Henkin, an Earthjustice attorney representing plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the Army, said it's important that there be accurate information about the safety of seafood gathered near Makua.

"Unfortunately, the Army has used contaminated background sites so that the samples they gather at Makua look relatively safer," Henkin said yesterday.

A comparison was made to "polluted" areas near Nanakuli and next to Sandy Beach near a sewage plant outfall, Henkin said.

Samples were gathered in muliwai, or estuaries, and offshore from Makua, and from a muliwai near Nanakuli and nearshore off Sandy Beach.

Of concern in the study was the determination that eating fish for subsistence from the nearshore locations exceeds U.S. Environmental Protection Agency risk levels for carcinogenic exposure.

The risk factor relates to pesticides and other compounds.

Limu, or seaweed, gathered near Makua exceeded the EPA risk level for arsenic, for both subsistence and recreational gathering.

Shellfish near Sandy Beach had greater contamination levels than found at Makua.

The more-than-1,600-page draft study by the Army, a requirement to potentially return to live-fire training in the 4,190-acre Wai'anae Coast valley, identified a number of substances in fish, shellfish and limu that are possible byproducts of military training, including RDX, perchlorate, arsenic, chromium, cobalt, nitroglycerin and manganese.

But the study released yesterday said a connection is not clear-cut.

"Though these and other substances may be the byproducts of military training at (Makua Military Reservation) they are also linked to natural and anthropologic sources, such as fireworks, rodenticides, gasoline and volcanic rock," the study said.

The report said organochlorine pesticides were used historically throughout Hawai'i for termite control and in agriculture.

The Army's study was required under a settlement agreement with the group Malama Makua, which filed suit against the Army in 2000 over live-fire training in the valley.

The case has been in federal court ever since, with the Army blocked from live-fire training since 2004, because of its failure to complete an environmental impact analysis of 60 years of training.

The marine study will be part of a final environmental impact statement that the Army said is due out next summer.

The public can comment on the draft marine study, available at www.garrison.hawaii.army.mil/shellfishstudy.