Nevadans say show helps Yucca fight

Erin Neff

Thursday, April 4, 2002 | 11:02 a.m.

Nevada leaders wanted a bit more out of Wednesday's episode of "The West Wing," but admit that anytime a national audience gets even a glimpse of what could occur if Yucca Mountain is approved as the nation's nuclear waste repository, the outcome is beneficial.

State leaders were glued to the popular NBC drama Wednesday night because the plot included the White House staff dealing with a crash of a truck carrying spent uranium fuel rods.

Although the fictional crash was cleaned up without any radioactive material spilled, the show's writers hit on the Nevada delegation's main argument about transportating nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain -- shipping waste is dangerous.

"I think this is the beginning of a national push against transporting nuclear waste," Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said after playing host to a party at Texas Station to watch the show.

Nevada leaders say although the show didn't go far enough to dramatize the risks, the message helped because "The West Wing" typically reaches 15 million people.

"It alluded to some of the issues we have, but it didn't really go into any detail, and it was only a small part of the plot," said Gov. Kenny Guinn, who spent time Wednesday discussing the dangers of transporting nuclear waste on MSNBC. "But, we'll take what we can get."

As Guinn prepares to veto President Bush's recommendation that Yucca Mountain become the nation's nuclear waste repository, state leaders are trying to mount a public relations campaign against the repository by highlighting the potential dangers, especially transporting 77,000 tons of high-level waste across country.

Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Ensign, R-Nev., have proposed a $10 million campaign that would included television ads and grass-roots organizing efforts to build opposition to Yucca Mountain. Nevada officials hope the episode achieved what some advertising would have done.

Guinn said he believes any PR at this stage in Nevada's fight against the dump is good, even if -- as he said -- some viewers might have missed hearing the state's message in the storyline written by former Clinton press secretary Dee Dee Meyers.

At the end of the story line, fictional President Josiah Bartlet, played by Martin Sheen (who has been arrested several times protesting at the Nevada Test Site), notes that radiation didn't escape but hit a key point about the safety of the shipping casks. It's a point Nevada officials hope people understood.

"We pack this stuff in two inches of stainless steel, four inches of lead. We've rammed it with trains and dropped it from helicopters," the president says on the show. "And it still isn't going to protect us from the thing we haven't thought of.

"They took a cask out to Aberdeen Proving Ground and shot a TOW missile clean through it. They showed me a video of it."

The show's writers were noting a real test in 1998 in which a missile strapped to a cask blew a hole in the shipping container.

Critics said the plot was not realistic and defended the safety of shipping nuclear waste. Nuclear industry officials have noted that the casks have been tested at in high-impact crashes and in fires with temperatures of more than 1,000 degrees.

In Washington this morning two the nation's leading manufacturers of nuclear waste transportation casks, Edlow International and NAC International, formed a coalition that intends to refute statements made by Yucca Mountain opponents about shipping waste.

The companies launched the coalition because of "The West Wing" episode, which they said was full of glaring inaccuracies. They said they are also frustrated by statements Nevada officials have made in recent months.

"The fact is that nuclear materials transportation has an impressive, unblemished safety and operations track record over 40 years, both in the United States and globally," Edlow President Jack Edlow said. "Our companies and others have already met the challenge of shipping nuclear materials under a climate of terrorism and other comparable conditions."

Company officials criticized the TV show's portrayal of nuclear waste transportation, saying the situation wouldn't have happened because of escorts with the nuclear waste.

Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins, D-Henderson, said he believed the show minimized Nevada's fight in a number of ways.

On the show the crash was 20 miles from an Idaho city of 20,000 in an otherwise barren area -- not along railways passing the nation's largest cities or in a mountain 90 miles from 1.2 million people.

"It doesn't compare to the transportation issues of taking this waste past cities like Chicago and St. Louis," Perkins said. "And it was such a subplot, I'm not sure many people could relate."

Nevadans who read and hear about Yucca Mountain every day probably heard the fictional president's concerns about transporting nuclear waste, especially the plea at the end.

But did that play in Peoria? "It certainly is a start," Perkins said. "Maybe we have to develop that message more and that's why I support getting the funding to pay for our campaign."

Ben Prochazka of U.S. Public Interest Research Group said, "It's great that the impression of a nuclear accident made it into pop culture and it is a new realism. For Nevadans, it resonates stronger than for people in other parts of the country.

"In reality, it will be traveling through small towns across the country, Prochazka said. "We do not have a litmus test on this. An Exxon Valdez we can clean up. A nuclear accident is a whole new ball game."

Jane Feldman of the Sierra Club said she did not see enough details in "The West Wing" episode.

"I don't think we have to worry so much about a TOW missile," she said. "The risk is more mundane, much more scary for us to have to live with every day. All it takes is a heavy rain to wash out the shoulder on a road." Reid thought the program was "excellent," and serves as a prime example of the type of message Nevada could get out with its proposed television campaign.

"I really believe that the state legislators on the (Interim Finance Committee) and the county commissioners and the city or whoever else is thinking of giving us money, should have watched," Reid said. "I hope they saw it."

Guinn is asking the state legislative committee to help fund a publicity campaign, and state leaders have asked local governments to pitch in as well.

Reid said "every thing helps" in the fight to keep waste out of Yucca Mountain. And, he noted, the program "did a little research" by mentioning a missile penetrating a cask.

Ensign had high hopes for the program and even taped an interview with the syndicated entertainment show "Extra" to discuss the parallels between fact and fiction.

"The president talked about the problems with the casks, but for the average person, it might not have sunk in," Ensign said. "He just kind of said it and moved on with the rest of his monologue near the end." Still, Ensign called the show "very, very" well done.

"This was almost like earned media," Ensign said. "In a campaign you have your paid media and whatever you get for free. This was like that." Sun reporters

Benjamin Grove and Mary Manning contributed to this story.