NANAKULI — About 75 people attended a public comment session at Nanaikapono Elementary School Cafeteria last night to address the findings of a recent Army environmental report focusing on six decades of military training in Makua Valley and how it has affected the valley's marine resources over the years.

The study concluded that there is little difference in marine contaminants found near the shores of Makua compared with background levels found by the Army at Nanakuli and Sandy Beach.

The Makua Resources Study is part of a 2001 settlement agreement between the Army and Malama Makua, a Wai'anae community group represented by Earthjustice, an environmental watchdog group.

"We need to know if the food we put on the table is safe," said Earthjustice attorney David Henkin, who called the Army study flawed. He said it should have either shown that the seafood people harvest off Makua is safe, or that the Army's use of the valley has or will contaminate the limu shellfish and other seafood.

Some in the crowd, such as William "Bill" Prescott, commander of VFW Post 849 in Wai'anae, came to show their support for the Army. But many others criticized the way the study was conducted.

Carl Jellings of Nanakuli, an akule fisherman who has fished along the Wai'anae Coast, including Makua, for most of his life, questioned the timing of the study, which was conducted in September.

"I think they should have done it in February in the rougher months when the heavy rains push everything out into the ocean," said Jellings. "Then you can get a really good fix on what's going on."

Vanda Hanakahi, with the 'Aha Kiole Advisory Committee, said the study should have included input from Hawaiian cultural practitioners.

"One of the major criticisms of the study is the control sites that they used," said activist William Aila, who is with Malama Makua. "Against our opposition, they chose two sites — one in Nanakuli and the other at Sandy Beach."

Both sites, Aila said, had active military training in the areas following World War II, making them poor comparative locations for the study.

Susan Carstenn, an environmental scientist with Tetratech, the consulting firm that did the study, said the sites were chosen because they were similar to Makua Valley in size, drainage density, rainfall and the dynamics of the streams. To do that properly meant finding muliwai, or estuaries and stream mouths, on the southern or Leeward side of O'ahu with similar conditions to Makua Valley.

"If you're trying to link contaminants to military activity, then you have to find two watersheds or regions that are as similar as possible in all other respects other than military," Carstenn said.

But Henkin said because Makua Valley was a wild, pristine area before the time the military began using it for training, comparing it to the modern, populated test sites did not produce good information.

He said he would like the Army to do further studies that will give the public a "credible" appraisal.

Army environmental attorney David Howlett, who's with Army headquarters in Washington, D.C., said he considered last night's meeting a success.

"What the Army wanted to do was find out what the people of this community thought about the study, and what additional things need to be done," Howlett said. "And frankly, speaking for the Army, I'm gratified that these people pointed out some of the things they expected in the study and had not found."