North Augusta The federal government's plan to build a new atomic weapons factory in South Carolina sparked protests Monday along the Savannah River, but opponents of the new plant were outnumbered.

Hours after anti-nuclear activists rallied in Augusta, supporters of the government's proposed modern pit facility showed up in force at a public hearing in South Carolina to say America needs the plant to help defend itself. And they want the jobs in the Aiken-Augusta area.

The Savannah River Site, a 310-square-mile nuclear weapons complex near Aiken, is one of five locations nationally in the running for the $2 billion to $4 billion nuclear triggers plant.

If built, the plant would employ as many as 1,800 people. Their jobs would range from machinists to radiation workers. They would help produce and manage grapefruit-sized pits that would keep the U.S. stockpile of atomic weapons components from going stale. The Bush administration is pushing production of new atomic weapons.

Monday's hearing, to discuss an environmental impact statement, brought a crowd estimated at 650 to 800 to the North Augusta Community Center. The environmental impact statement recommends building the plant at one of the five locations.

Those in the crowd at North Augusta included about 100 plant protesters, as well as politicians and business people who want the facility.

"We understand the significance of the economic impact that will be made to our metro community of Georgia and South Carolina from the construction and the operation of this pit facility," said banker Patrick Blanchard, president of Georgia-Carolina Bancshares Inc. "I'm here to express our support."

Blanchard said SRS now employs 12,000 to 13,000 people but that's about 10,000 jobs less that it had during Cold War production. Since production reactors shut down more than a decade ago, SRS has been mainly in a cleanup mode and has had fewer employees.

Blanchard's support for the plant brought loud applause from the crowd, and echoed the thoughts of many local, state and national politicians, who sent representatives to the meeting. Those backing the plant include U.S. Senators Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Zell Miller, D-Ga., most congressmen from the area, and Govs. Mark Sanford, R-S.C., and Sonny Perdue, R-Ga.

Phil Mottel, mayor pro tem of North Augusta, told The State that SRS has handled plutonium during its 50 years of operation.

So bringing a plant like the pit facility to South Carolina only makes sense, he said. The North Augusta City Council has expressed support for the plant, he said.

"If the site grows, our community grows," said Mottel, whose father, Bill, a former plant manager at SRS, spoke in favor of the pit plant.

"Let's get this facility put where it belongs," Bill Mottel said. "The pit facility belongs at SRS."

Where the plant will be located won't be known for months. The U.S. Department of Energy has until next spring to pick a site.

Other possible sites include nuclear weapons facilities in Texas, New Mexico and Nevada, but South Carolina and Georgia backers said those sites are inferior to SRS because of its long history of working with plutonium. SRS was once a plutonium production facility. It is also the site of a proposed facility to turn surplus plutonium into commercial nuclear reactor fuel.

Despite the popularity of building a new pit plant at SRS, activists said Monday they are determined to fight the government's plan.

The government said it needs to build a new plant because its existing stockpile of plutonium pits is getting old and may not work well in weapons.

Activists say the material is too dangerous to transport to South Carolina and too toxic to risk a leak to the environment. Plutonium, if inhaled, can cause cancer.

Buses of activists descended on Augusta and North Augusta earlier Monday from Atlanta and Columbia to stage a protest rally. The rally drew nearly 100 people, many of whom dressed in jumpsuits and hardhats as mock inspectors of weapons of mass destruction. Groups represented at the rally included the Carolina Peace Resource Center, Greenpeace, Georgians Against Nuclear Energy, and Women's Action for New Directions.

Nuclear triggers haven't been produced en masse since the late 1980s ,and building a new plant would signal a return to atomic weapons escalation, critics said. That's particularly upsetting because the federal government doesn't set aside enough money to help needy people, critics said.

"If we don't have money to feed our children ... where in the hell does the administration get $4 billion to build a pit facility?" Augusta activist Judy Stocker told those at the rally Monday.

Activist Glenn Carroll, who was evicted from the public meeting, said earlier Monday that building a new pit plant "defies logic."

Carroll and other anti-nuclear activists were upset that they were not allowed to speak early at the public meeting. Plant supporters had gotten to the meeting early and signed up before many of the protesters arrived.

Carroll complained during the meeting that all voices were not being heard, and she was escorted out by police. Many people who had come from Columbia and Atlanta were having to leave before they got a chance to speak, said Tom Clements, an activist with Greenpeace in Washington.

Nonetheless, Clements told anti-nuclear activists they could defeat the facility if they kept trying. Washington politicians may not see the need to restart a nuclear weapons production program, he said.

"We can turn this thing around," Clements said.