The federal installation known for decades as South Carolina's "bomb plant" may soon return to its roots.

The Savannah River Site, 20 miles south of Aiken, is a leading candidate to host a $2 billion to $4 billion facility to make plutonium pits, the triggers in nuclear weapons.

SRS supplied the nation's nuclear arsenal with plutonium, producing 36 tons of the man-made metal between 1953 and 1988. Since then, the site's chief mission has been cleaning up and stabilizing the millions of gallons of waste left behind.

The Department of Energy is expected to decide whether to go ahead with the pit project and choose from among SRS and four other sites next April. A public meeting on an environmental study of the plant will be Monday in North Augusta.

An angry crowd showed up Tuesday near Los Alamos, N.M., another candidate site. The S.C. meeting, however, promises a welcoming parade of politicians, civic leaders and other officials.

"There is no nuclear Department of Energy site in the country whose community supports it more strongly. I guarantee you we'll have every mayor within 50 miles there supporting it," said Mal McKibben, a retired SRS nuclear chemist.

In contrast to former S.C. Gov. Jim Hodges, who threatened to lie down in front of incoming tractor-trailers bearing plutonium, Gov. Mark Sanford is at peace with the bomb material.

Within a week of taking office, Sanford met with U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham to show support.

An initial screening by the Energy Department ranked SRS second, behind the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Other sites being weighed are the Pantex Plant near Amarillo, Texas; the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M.; and the Nevada Test Site near Las Vegas.

Texas and New Mexico have the support of powerful Western senators, McKibben said.

But SRS has something unique: a 50-year history of handling plutonium.

"SRS is all about plutonium. So I've got to say it looks like the logical choice, if you follow that line of reasoning, which we don't," said Glenn Carroll of Georgians Against Nuclear Energy.

Carroll, like many opponents, doesn't think the government needs more plutonium. More than 12,000 pits are already stored at Pantex, where nuclear weapons are assembled.

More than 125 advocacy groups urged Congress last month to block the pit plant, saying it would waste money and endanger the public.

DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration says its weapons are aging. While no major degradation has been detected, an agency report said last month, the stockpile could become unreliable as impurities and corrosion mount.