However, restoration of the training site will not include 187 acres that the Marine Corps recently declared unsafe for military training.

A public meeting has been called for today to make sure people understand the scope of the work and to solicit volunteers for a restoration advisory board for the project, said Chuck Streck, Army Corps of Engineers program manager for ordnance studies.

Plans call for a federally financed risk assessment — cost: about $1 million — to be conducted beginning as early as September. From that, solutions will be offered, Streck said.

The treatment of Waikane Valley, along with areas such as Kaho'olawe, has long fueled debate over the military's use of Hawai'i land for training, especially where there are archaeological sites and endangered species.

Kapua Sproat, an attorney with the environmental advocacy group Earthjustice, said she looks forward to tonight's meeting because residents, especially longtime Waikane families, have been long asking for the cleanup.

"It was a commitment the Marines made and never made good on," Sproat said, referring to the military's original agreement to clean the property once it stopped using it.

The area was once used to grow taro and contained a heiau and other archaeological sites. Today the land is mostly vacant and used by bike riders, pig hunters and other trespassers who seem unaware of the potential dangers.

The Waikane Training Area was leased by the military and used for live-fire training from World War II until 1976, when it was shut down. A cleanup cleared the land of about 40,000 pounds of practice ordnance and scrap before the military backed away from the effort, saying it had become too expensive.

The 1,061 acres in the Waikane Training Area were returned to the owners, including 187 acres that belonged to the Kamaka family. The Kamakas then farmed the land until the military condemned it in 1989, said Ray Kamaka, 65. Kamaka said he discovered ordnance on the land in the mid-'80s and asked the military to remove it.

However, the military decided it would be too expensive, so it condemned the land, offered the family $2 million and fenced off the area instead, Kamaka said.

Even now Kamaka contends that the land was improperly taken and said he has never accepted any of the money for it.

"They were supposed to clean it but instead they turned the table on me," Kamaka said.

Kamaka said he wasn't sure what this new proposal could mean for the valley or his family. The acreage surrounding the 187 acres has ordnance as well, but that property was never condemned or fenced off, he said.

"The neighbors had just as many bombs on their area," he said. "It's all over."

Last year, the Marines wanted to reactivate the 187-acre parcel for jungle warfare training but determined it was too dangerous because of unexploded ordnance. The Marines Corps erected a new fence around the site and left any decision about whether to clean it to the Department of the Navy.

Nationally, the Defense Department has about 9,000 formerly used defense sites and has been conducting studies and cleanups for several years toward making the areas safer. Two years ago, the government initiated an assessment for land in He'eia, Kahalu'u and Maunawili. That project stalled because one of the bigger landowners took a year to give permission to enter the property, Streck said. That assessment should wrap up by September.

The assessment in Waikane will require a right-of-entry to the properties now owned by the city, state, Waikane Development Co. and a few small landowners, Streck said, adding that they could refuse to have their properties assessed but there could be consequences.

"If you don't volunteer to be a part of this, that means you agree to assume the liability," he said.