The Army has taken the lead in investigating flammable military propellants that last week came to the attention of authorities at Ma'ili Beach but may have been washing up on the Wai'anae Coast for decades.

"We accept responsibility for those propellant grains as a military cleanup issue, and we're working diligently and urgently with other agencies to determine the next actions that need to be taken," said Troy Griffin, an Army spokesman at Schofield Barracks.

The Army's Technical Center for Explosive Safety has been brought in, and Griffin said the Navy has been contacted to see if it can provide divers.

"That's what the next step is — we're going to go in the water and look," Griffin said. "We want to know where they are, and how much there are, and whether a cleanup is possible."

One area diver last week said there are "tons of" the cigarette-filter-sized charges at a spot called Five Inch Reef about three miles off the coast.

Wai'anae resident William Aila Jr., who was one of the first to bring the beadlike brown and olive grains to the attention of authorities, said retired military people who used to work at the naval magazine at Lualualei told him the explosive is probably from old 3-inch to 6-inch Navy rounds whose brass casings have deteriorated.

'ORDNANCE REEF'

The rounds may have been dumped as surplus in a region so known for old ammo that one spot is called "Ordnance Reef" by divers. A Defense Department survey of the ordnance was supposed to come out this past fall.

Aila said in talking with Wai'anae Coast residents, he's come to realize the propellant, which sinks but is light enough to be churned by surf, may have been washing up for 50 years, but only recently has been given attention.

"We have homeless on Ma'ili Beach who are there all the time. Some are being entrepreneurial, so they are picking up seashells and stringing lei to sell to tourists," Aila said.

Others were making necklaces out of the beadlike charges, which Aila said burn faster than a roadside flare when exposed to flame. The Army last week put out an advisory saying the propellant is "highly flammable" and that the grains should not be handled.

At the request of the Defense Department, marine scientists last June surveyed Poka'i Bay for World War II-era munitions dumped in relatively shallow waters off the Wai'anae Coast.

The final report, which officials last year said could lead to recovery efforts, was expected out last fall. There was no word yesterday on the delay, but a local military official said the report could come out "soon."

TONS WERE DUMPED

Publicity about the U.S. military's practice of dumping chemical and conventional weapons at sea decades ago led to data that 4,220 tons of hydrogen cyanide were dumped somewhere off Pearl Harbor in 1944. During that year, the military also dumped 16,000 100-pound mustard bombs "about five miles off of O'ahu."

In 1945, off Wai'anae, the Army dumped thousands of hydrogen cyanide bombs, cyanogen chloride bombs, mustard bombs and lewisite containers. Charts identified some as being in 1,600 feet of water.

An Army Corps of Engineers survey in 2002 at Ordnance Reef identified more than 2,000 military munitions at depths ranging from 15 feet to 240 feet, with the majority observed deeper than 60 feet.

A separate report on deep-water munitions sites in U.S. waters was due out last June but also has not been released, officials said.

Reach William Cole at wcole@honoluluadvertiser.com.