AIKEN — Marguerite Bowen has worked the cash register at the Carolina BBQ on Whiskey Road in New Ellenton for 15 years.

Bowen was there in the good times, when there were 25,000 highly paid workers at the Savannah River Site just down the road. And she is there today, when that pool of workers has dwindled to about 13,000.

The 68-year-old Bamburg native hopes today’s announcement will help stop the flow of jobs out of the site.

“People come in, and you can tell they just got their pink slips,” she said. “It’s depressing.”

Aiken officials say they are in the dark about what today’s announcement by Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham might be.

They have their fingers crossed that the announcement will mean jobs.

“It’s not just the money the jobs bring, it’s the people,” Mayor Fred Cavanaugh said. “They contribute to the community. They give to charities. They retire here. That’s what the site means to us, as well as jobs and paychecks.”

The city of Aiken is just eight miles south of Interstate 20. But there is little development between the picturesque downtown and I-20.

Most towns grow toward interstate highways like tree roots grow toward a stream. But in Aiken, the town flows south to the SRS site.

“It’s a strange phenomenon,” said Charles Weiss, president and CEO of the Aiken County Chamber of Commerce. “But it shows how important the site is. It affects everything, including how we grow.”

SRS is the largest employer in the county and second only to Augusta’s Fort Gordon in the Central Savannah River Area, which includes Edgefield, North Augusta and Augusta.

“This announcement could affect the CSRA region as whole,” Weiss said. “But the site, without a doubt, has the largest single impact on Aiken’s economy.”

About 52 percent of the workers at SRS live in Aiken County — 32 percent in the city of Aiken.

Local officials hope Abraham will name the site a research, development and manufacturing center for futuristic hydrogen fuel cells for the auto industry.

“That’s a $1 trillion industry,” said Fred Humes, director of the Economic Development Partnership, a nonprofit organization serving Aiken and Edgefield counties. “Between the research facilities in the triangle of SRS, Clemson and USC, the state is well positioned to capture up to $10 billion of that.”

But local officials admit that a hoped-for influx of new jobs will only stem the job losses at the site.

Most of the workers at SRS are crews cleaning up the old nuclear bomb-making reservation. As the site is cleaned up over the next 10 years, those jobs also will evaporate.

“It’ll never get back up to 20,000 or 25,000 (jobs),” Humes said. “We’ll be fortunate to maintain the levels we have now.”

The loss of jobs over the last 15 years has hurt, Cavanaugh said.

But he said Aiken has been able to keep its unemployment rate at 5.7 percent through a mix of alternative industries.

The equestrian industry, particularly polo, has boomed in Aiken, with 40 new polo fields in the works.

Retirees, many from SRS, have flooded the town, bringing a positive cash flow and lowering the overall unemployment figures.

And the Bridgestone and SKF factories have added much-needed jobs.

“So even if we get nothing, it won’t hurt us that much,” Cavanaugh said. “But we hope the announcement will be very good.”

Bowen, at Carolina BBQ, also is hoping for good news as she rings up customers at the buffet.

“I hate to see all these people losing their jobs,” she said. “I want it to stop.”

Reach Wilkinson at (803) 771-8495 or jwilkinson@thestate.com.