The Army Corps of Engineers has launched a one-year project to collect flammable propellant grains that have washed ashore at Ma'ili Beach and identify where they are coming from.

Complaints arose in March when the Wai'anae Coast community was made aware that the bead-like objects some people had been collecting and stringing into necklaces for years were actually flammable grains used in munitions and rockets.

Wai'anae harbormaster William Aila Jr. said the plan — to hire a private company for the work — is an encouraging first step toward clearing about 2,000 rounds of munitions in the shallow area of Ordnance Reef off Poka'i Bay.

"Hopefully by compiling data, they might be able to find a source offshore and be able to deal with it effectively," he said.

DON'T TOUCH THEM

The $135,015 contract with Donaldson Enterprise Inc. will allow for regular monitoring of the beach that will help officials pinpoint the beads' origin.

The grains that wash ashore will be stabilized in buckets of water and removed.

Dino Buchanan, a spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers, said the chances of the grains causing a fire are minimal. Officials, however, stress that they should not be touched.

"If you actually hold it in your hand, which we don't recommend, we don't think they'd burn you, but we just don't want people to touch them at all," said Joe Bonfiglio, also a Corps spokesman. "Any munition is actually potentially dangerous; that's a given and should only be handled by experts."

Officials urge anyone who recognizes a pellet to retreat and report the find to a lifeguard or other authority and call 911.

Donaldson Enterprise crews will be walking the beach every 10 days or so, removing any hazardous pellets they come across, marking the area for the public, locating the exact location with a global positioning system and transferring the grains to the U.S. Department of Defense for disposal.

Aila said cleaning up the propellant is a small part of a larger problem with munitions, but he said the contract sets a nice precedent.

After being told that the materials at "Ordnance Bay" are not hazardous, community members have asked that they be removed if it is not unsafe to do so.

If there are questions about how safe removal would be, then the community wants to continue talking with the military about the problem, Aila said.

EFFECT ON ECOSYSTEM?

One of the biggest questions residents have is whether the pellets, which contain nitrogen, will have an effect on the offshore ecosystem.

There also is a question of safety, although the University of Hawai'i and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have found no problems.

"They did some real basic sampling of fish and sediment, but they did not sample the crabs or algae that we eat," Aila said. "There's no overriding data that it's either safe or unsafe, so we need to start with more studies."

Since the contract was just awarded, a start date has not been set.

Reach Treena Shapiro at tshapiro@honoluluadvertiser.com.