WAI'ANAE — A study of military munitions dumped six decades ago in the Poka'i Bay area has concluded that the waters, fish and general area are safe. But some community leaders said yesterday they have no confidence in the study and insisted that the 5-mile area known as Ordnance Reef needs to be cleaned up.

The two-week study conducted in May and June by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found 15 new clusters of ordnance, ranging from .30-caliber rounds to large-caliber artillery projectiles and naval gun ammunition, that added up to "a couple thousand" items, said Michael Overfield, marine archaeologist and Ordnance Reef survey chief scientist for NOAA.

The study represents the latest attempt to document the military's dumping of World War II-era munitions in deep and shallow waters off O'ahu.

In 2002, a study by the Army Corps of Engineers found more than 2,000 munitions along the Wai'anae Coast. The Department of Defense then asked NOAA to conduct a follow-up assessment, which included help from the state Department of Land and Natural Resources and the University of Hawai'i.

The NOAA study released yesterday originally was expected to come out in the fall. Since then, attention has focused on flammable military propellants washing up on the Wai'anae Coast that apparently have been a problem for decades.

The Army said the grains are low-explosive pellets that probably were used in large-bore guns to fire a high-explosive round. Included in the same group are smokeless gunpowders and flares.

During a briefing yesterday on the NOAA study, J.C. King, assistant for munitions and chemical matters for the U.S. Army, said the latest findings suggest "there is no immediate threat to the public or the environment."

No cleanup of the area is planned, King said.

MIXED SIGNALS

State Sen. Colleen Hanabusa, D-21, (Nanakuli, Makaha), president of the Senate, was among those skeptical about the conclusions.

Hanabusa repeated her call to have the ordnance removed.

"If you're telling the community that there is nothing to be afraid of, and that it (ordnance) can stay in the ocean without any consequences, then by the same token you should be able to remove it," she said.

A year ago, Hanabusa said, the military suggested it would be riskier to the environment to attempt to clean up the munitions than simply leave them alone.

"To say there is no problem and therefore you should let it lie, but at the same time to say there is a danger in cleaning it up — there's a disconnect there," Hanabusa said. "Something's wrong with that logic. So if we have nothing to worry about, then they should remove it."

NOAA divers and researchers took water and sediment samples and surveyed the sea floor using side-scan sonar and remotely operated vehicles.

The clusters of ordnance that were studied were found at depths ranging from 24 feet to 300 feet, the maximum the researchers' equipment could reach.

Researchers also dissected 49 Pacific farmer fish, goat fish and moray eels but found no explosives or related compounds in the fish, Overfield said.

Sediment samples revealed metal levels that were "low overall," except for copper, according to the researchers. There was no evidence of the explosives cyclonite, trinitrotoluene or tetryl.

A related munitions compound, dinitrotoluene, was found in four sediment samples.

The survey also found that the ordnance has been hardened over with decades of coral growth, which has created new reefs that are now "teeming with life," Overfield said.

EFFECT ON FISH

Cameron Guadiz, an assistant instructor with Captain Bruce Scuba Charters, takes customers out along the Wai'anae Coast seven days a week. He said there's a clear distinction between the area's natural reefs and the relatively new, artificial reefs.

"If everything's all right, how come there's not too much fish there?" Guadiz asked. "You dive any other reef out here where that stuff's not there, there's lots of fish and interesting stuff to see."

If he does take customers to some of the ordnance areas, such as the 45-foot-deep Five Inch Reef, Guadiz always tells divers not to touch the unexploded 5-inch artillery shells.

"It's unexploded ordnance and it could blow up," he said. "It's been at depth all this time. If they pick it up and bring it back on the boat and try to take it home, one day somebody's going to get killed."

Residents yesterday not only questioned the decision not to clean up the reef, but also complained about how the fish were tested for toxic levels.

William Aila, a Wai'anae resident, Hawaiian activist and long-time area fisherman, said the study was conducted against the community's recommendations.

"They homogenized the samples of the fish — meaning that they chopped them all up and mixed them together and then tested for the chemical concentrations," Aila said.

Some community members specifically asked that the study not be conducted that way but were ignored, Aila said.

"A more proper methodology would be to remove the intestines, liver and the brain and then have those internal organs tested for chemical concentrations," Aila said. "When you do a toxicology study of humans, you look at the organs. You don't take tissue from a piece of the finger and do an analysis because it's not accurate. ... They haven't answered the community's questions about whether it's safe out there. By homogenizing the samples, they sort of rigged the outcome."

As a result, Aila said, community members are unwilling to accept that the waters around Ordnance Reef are safe and have little confidence in the study.

DON'T TOUCH, ARMY SAYS

In response to Aila's concerns, Eric De Carlo, a geochemist and UH oceanography professor who co-authored the study, said, "It's well known that internal organs tend to concentrate toxins — that's their function."

So testing the fish organs would result in a "worst-case scenario," De Carlo said. "The other aspect is you look at only the filets, and that's the best-case scenario."

Rather than use either of the two extremes, De Carlo said, a more practical approach would be to test the whole fish.

King, of the Army, said anyone who comes across ordnance, either on land or underwater, is urged to follow the "three R's: recognize, retreat and report" by calling 911.

He acknowledged that officials worry that the study's conclusions about the safety of the area could encourage divers to try to handle the ordnance.

The Army is notifying scuba-diving magazines and companies that advertise the munitions areas as dive sites to warn divers not to touch any ordnance, he said.

Reach Dan Nakaso at dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com and Will Hoover at whoover@honoluluadvertiser.com.