The inaugural batch of M55 rockets filled with GB nerve agent will be hauled on Monday from the earthen igloos where they’ve been stored for decades to the metal building housing the furnace. The burn will begin the next day.

The startup comes after decades of debate over the best disposal methods for the Cold War-era weapons and years of testing to make sure the $650 million incinerator facility in Jefferson County is up to the task.

"We have confirmed readiness of our plant, processes and people to begin safe and environmentally sound disposal operations," site project manager Randy Long said.

That first batch of weapons will consist of only two agentfilled rockets. While the furnace system will eventually destroy dozens of weapons per day, the first runs will be small, said Raini Wright, a spokesman for the Pine Bluff Chemical Agent Disposal Facility.

"It’s a gradual, slow rampup," she said. "They don’t immediately just start processing the maximum amount of rockets we can process per hour. It’s slow and deliberate to make sure everything is working properly and safely."

A team of experts at the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality have monitored the weapons disposal system during test runs over the past few years to make sure it will be able to burn the aging munitions safely.

"ADEQ has reviewed the work they did," spokesman Doug Szenher said. "We have approved for them to proceed."

The Pine Bluff Arsenal is home to 3,850 tons of nerve and blister agent. The stockpile makes up 12 percent of the nation’s cache of chemical weapons.

The furnace system will first burn the arsenal’s GB-filled M55 rockets. Rockets filled with the nerve agent VX will be bound for the furnace next. VX land mines and containers loaded with mustard blister agents will be burned last.

Officials at the arsenal predict it will take five years to eliminate the entire stockpile.

The Pine Bluff Arsenal is one of eight sites in the nation where chemical weapons are stored. Destruction of those weapons has already begun in Aberdeen, Md.; Anniston, Ala.; Hermiston, Ore.; and Tooele, Utah. Weapons are also being stored in Newport, Ind.; Richmond, Ky.; and Pueblo, Colo.

The United States is rushing to comply with an international treaty that calls for all chemical weapons to be destroyed by 2012.

The Army and the Department of Defense are studying ways to meet that deadline. One option being considered would call for weapons stored at sites where disposal facilities haven’t been built to be transported to sites where incinerators already exist. That option has already drawn lots of criticism from those who say moving the weapons was never an option in the past because it was considered too dangerous. Those critics fear an accident or terrorist attack during transit would unleash deadly chemical plumes.

The March 29 start date at Pine Bluff comes after nearly a year of delays. Officials at the arsenal originally planned to fire up the furnace system on April 30, 2004, but technical glitches held them up. Some equipment had to be recalibrated or replaced, and workers had to be retrained on the new equipment.