Dueling ads kick off media blitz on Yucca

Benjamin Grove

Wednesday, April 10, 2002 | 11:04 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- The debate over Yucca Mountain began on the pages of the Washington Post today in advertisements from the state of Nevada and the Nuclear Energy Institute.

For the state, it's the first ad in the what officials hope will be a campaign to drum up opposition to the proposed nuclear dump at Yucca Mountain.

Nevada's ad, which ran on the right half of page 8 in the Post's front section, listed 42 states in alphabetical order, Alabama through Wyoming, that lie on likely routes that would be used to haul high-level radioactive waste to the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada, if it is approved as a national waste burial ground.

The states are listed in a long, vertical column down the page. The ad reads: "They want to ship HIGHLY RADIOACTIVE NUCLEAR WASTE to Nevada, which puts (the listed states) IN GRAVE DANGER."

The ad says the waste would go through 43 states and 734 counties, "home to half the population of the United States. All at risk of catastrophic nuclear disaster."

It goes on to say, "those in power would like to keep this quiet," and urges people to call Congress to "tell them you don't want to live in a nuclear neighborhood."

In small print the advertisement says, "Paid for by the Agency for Nuclear Projects." It does not explain the agency is a Nevada state agency. The long list of states also left out was one state in which waste would travel: Nevada.

The advertisement's rhetoric is inaccurate, said Mitch Singer, spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the nuclear industry's top trade group. In particular, Nevada officials routinely exaggerate the number of shipments that would be used to haul waste to Nevada, Singer said. He said only about 300 or 400 a year -- not 3,000. Industry officials often point to the safety record of more than 3,000 shipments of high-level waste that have been made in America.

"It's really a little bit unconscionable to tell you the truth to exaggerate when the history of shipments has been so positive over the last 37 years without a single loss of radiation," Singer said.

Although the Nevada ad urges action, by appearing in the Washington Post the ad was aimed more at putting pressure on lawmakers than sparking grass-roots action by U.S. citizens.

The ad contrasts one today run in the Washington Post by the Nuclear Energy Institute, a quarter page ad on page 20 that features a photograph of Yucca Mountain. It reads in part: "America's used nuclear fuel belongs beneath this desert ridge. Managing used nuclear fuel at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, is the right choice for the environment, national security and America's energy future." The ad concludes: "Put used nuclear fuel in its place."

NEI will run ads "periodically" leading up to the vote in Congress, Singer said.