HERMISTON -- This morning the first M55 rocket containing sarin gas is to be destroyed at the Umatilla Chemical Depot.

Workers at the depot 30 miles south of the Tri-Cities moved the first pallet of 15 rockets into the incinerator at noon Tuesday, said spokeswoman Mary Binder.

A forklift picked up the pallet from inside a depot storage igloo, loaded it into a special steel container on the back of a flat-bed truck, then drove it to the incinerator facility less than a mile away.

Each rocket will be drained, chopped and burned in a process that takes about 45 minutes.

The chemical agent, officially known as GB, will be stored in a separate container until enough has been collected to burn in one of the plant's two liquid incinerators. Officials estimate it will be about a month before that occurs.

Anyone interested in seeing a video of the first rocket being taken apart can go to the Army Outreach Office, 190 E. Main St., Hermiston, from 3 to 6 p.m. today.

Photos of the first pallet of rockets being moved are available by clicking on the "current events" icon at www.csepp.net. Updates are available at 1-888-866-5928.

The facility's start up, initially set for Aug. 18, was delayed three weeks after surrogate chemical agent was detected beyond the carbon filters in the ventilation system during a test of the facility's second liquid incinerator.

The six banks of carbon filters deal with air flowing through the facility. A second set of filters handles air from the incineration furnaces, Binder said. The incineration carbon filters are the subject of lawsuits filed by GASP, a local group opposed to the incinerator.

Binder attributed the detection partially to the liquid incinerator being tested so close to start up, when monitors on the plant's stacks were working. Other sites, and even tests done on the first liquid incinerator at the Umatilla Chemical Depot, were not done at that state of readiness.

Depot staff kept the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality Chemical Demil Program, which oversees the facility's operating permits, informed about the steps taken in testing the filters, said DEQ Administrator Dennis Murphy.

Those steps included testing the filters' absorption capacity, changing the first banks of filters and flushing out the facility with air to remove the surrogate agent from the system.

"I am comfortable with it starting tomorrow," he said, noting the agency has not gotten an increase in calls from concerned citizens because of the delay.

Steve Meyers, manager of the Army Outreach Office in Hermiston, also said there hasn't been a flood of concerned callers. "I would say there was a mild concern expressed by members of the community."

Generally, people have been accepting of the notion of starting only when the facility was ready, he said.

Nor has the Umatilla County Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program received more calls, said spokeswoman Cheryl Seigal.

Community presentations about the depot always have included information about why there are delays, she said. People understood and appreciated safety as a top priority, she said.

Most of the questions her staff handled dealt with people making last-minute preparations, like getting a tone-alert radio or shelter-in-place kit, Seigal said.

April Kowalski-Milbrodt, who lives in Stanfield and works in Hermiston, said the delays didn't worry her. "I know the people who work out there and the hours they put in."

Kowalski-Milbrodt, whose husband worked on the depot, pointed out that the same start-up process has taken place at other incineration sites.

And longtime Hermiston resident Debbie Myers said delays were part of any operation. "You trouble-shoot and that's how it goes."