Despite being more than a year late on a court-ordered environmental study, the Army is asking a federal judge to allow it to resume live-fire training in Makua Valley in preparation for an upcoming deployment to Iraq.

The Army yesterday filed a motion in federal court seeking to hold about 30 company-size or smaller exercises in the Wai'anae Coast valley before summer, when about 7,000 Schofield Barracks soldiers will deploy to Iraq for a year in the third major war deployment in a three-year period.

The Army last trained in Makua 14 months ago under a 2001 settlement agreement with environmental and community groups. Yesterday's motion seeks to amend the settlement.

About 5,200 25th Infantry Division (Light) soldiers deployed to Iraq for a year in early 2004, and 5,800 deployed to Afghan-istan a few months later.

"During this period of time, we've got many echelons of soldiers, newly assigned soldiers to the division since the division recently returned from both Afghanistan and Iraq, who have got to go through the Army's training program," said Col. Howard Killian, commander of U.S. Army Garrison, Hawai'i.

The training in 4,190-acre Makua Valley allows soldiers to advance and fire on mock enemy positions while helicopters swoop past and artillery and mortars are fired.

"Obviously, the complexities of battle under live fire are very different and probably the toughest conditions that we're going to place people under," Killian said during a news conference yesterday. "It's not a place where you want people to be exposed for the first time to those types of conditions."

But the Army also agreed under a 2001 court settlement with Earthjustice and community group Malama Makua to conduct an extensive environmental study of the effects of more than 50 years of military live-fire training in the valley, which is home to more than 40 endangered species and 100 archaeological features.

Malama Makua and other community groups object to live-fire training in the valley.

The study was supposed to be completed in October 2004. Killian yesterday said he hopes it can be completed by the spring — almost two years late.

Since 2001, U.S. District Judge Susan Oki Mollway has granted five orders allowing military exercises in Makua Valley that did not fall under the terms of the agreement.

Earthjustice attorney David Henkin yesterday said an Army request for a return to training was rejected through talks between the parties, and that the court motion also will be opposed.

Henkin said an environmental impact statement, or EIS, is supposed to take 18 months to two years. The settlement agreement gave the Army three years. By comparison, the Army completed an EIS for its $1.5 billion Stryker Brigade in two years, he said.

"Huge document. They got that done in two years," Henkin said. "They wanted to get that done. They had a fire lit under them to get that done.

"Here we are four years down the pike and they are saying, 'Oh, we didn't get it done,' " Henkin said. "Well, sorry, you (the Army) agreed to get it done. You agreed that the consequences of not getting it done on time were going to be that you couldn't train at Makua until you got it done, and that's the incentive to get it done."

Part of the delay, Killian said, is due to a requirement to conduct archaeological surveys, but a "prescribed burn" in July 2003 to clear grass so unexploded ordnance could be removed got out of control and burned half the valley, triggering a separate review of habitat protection.

The Army in 1998 suspended training after munitions that fell outside designated areas started fires. In the decade prior, exercises were blamed for 270 fires in the valley. Lawsuits filed by Earthjustice and Malama Makua led to the 2001 agreement.

Under that agreement, 37 Combined Arms Live-Fire Exercises were allowed over three years. The Army used 26 of those opportunities, Henkin said. Army officials say Makua Valley is the only suitable location for the company-size exercises.

Killian said firing range closures on Schofield Barracks because of Stryker Brigade projects has limited Schofield training.

Reach William Cole at wcole@honoluluadvertiser.com.