‘West Wing’ episode could help in fight against dump

Benjamin Grove

Friday, March 29, 2002 | 11:58 a.m.

A popular television drama may be Nevada's best chance of publicizing the real-world dangers of shipping nuclear waste and building support against the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump, Nevada officials said.

In next week's "The West Wing" episode, scheduled to air at 9 p.m. Wednesday on NBC, the White House faces a "radioactive crisis" after a big rig carrying uranium fuel rods crashes in Idaho posing a potential "environmental -- or terrorist -- crisis," according to the show's published description.

The timing of the episode is "manna from heaven," said Nathan Naylor, spokesman for Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev.

"Anything that raises the issue of transportation of radioactive material helps us," Naylor said.

Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said the episode would be helpful in raising awareness about the waste shipping issue.

"This is very favorable because it shows that this is not just a Nevada issue and that it has become a national issue," said Ensign, who added that he is a "big fan" of the show despite its left-leaning president.

Nevada officials are waging an effort to publicize the risks of shipping nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. As Congress is preparing to take up the matter this year, Nevada officials feel the key issue against Yucca Mountain is the transportation of nuclear waste.

If the public turns against Yucca Mountain, Nevada officials believe they can muster support in the U.S. Senate to kill the matter.

Noting that a recent poll showed 53 percent of Americans didn't know enough about the nuclear waste repository to form an opinion -- and the Americans who have an opinion are split, Nevada officials believe the TV show may be a chance to build opposition to Yucca Mountain.

It's unclear if the popular drama that draws on current events for plot lines sways its audience of 17.7 million people a week on the issues, but Gov. Kenny Guinn said the state's Yucca Mountain public relations firm, Brown and Partners, is mulling whether to spend $300,000 to $400,000 on a newspaper ad campaign calling attention to the show.

"It could run in select newspapers in big cities telling people to watch 'The West Wing' to help understand the potential hazards of transporting nuclear waste," Guinn said.

Reid and Ensign have urged Guinn to call a special session of the Legislature to approve about $10 million, mostly for targeted television commercials in key cities along proposed waste transportation routes. A majority of lawmakers are reluctant to approve more money, but Guinn is trying to determine if the state could shake money loose from the strained state budget.

Meanwhile the "West Wing" episode amounts to free publicity, Nevada sources said.

But it's not clear how much influence a television show, even a topical one that tackles current issues, has on the public at large, critics say. While television or movies may influence fads and trends, they rarely sway audiences on political issues, said Mark Winokur, a University of Colorado, Boulder, professor who specializes in media and popular culture.

"The West Wing" episode may stir emotions for people who know they live along likely waste transportation routes, but probably will have "very little effect" nationwide, Winokur said.

"The question of nuclear waste and what to do with it is such a complex question that it is not the kind of question that appeals to the American public to react to or to do something about," Winokur said.

Nevada officials in recent weeks have suggested a Yucca Mountain story line to "West Wing" consultants.

Sources said Yucca Mountain is not mentioned in the hour-long show, but that tension surrounding the nuclear waste accident would illustrate the risks of waste shipping.

NBC spokeswoman Deborah Thomas would not elaborate on the waste transportation story line, nor did Maria Stasi, publicist for Warner Brothers, which produces the show.

"West Wing" executive producer Aaron Sorkin was unavailable, his agent said.

The exposure that the show, the seventh-most popular on TV, brings could spark national interest in the issue of hauling highly radioactive nuclear waste, said Ed Rothschild, partner in Podesta-Mattoon, the lobbying firm hired by Nevada officials to drum up opposition to the Yucca project in Congress.

"Polling data we have seen shows that a lot of Americans don't know what is going on," Rothschild said. "We need to get peoples' attention and the way to get people's attention is through the media."

Rothschild said his firm had not contacted the "West Wing" to suggest the story line.

"West Wing" consultant and former President Clinton press secretary Dee Dee Myers talked several times with Michael O'Donovan, spokesman for Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., as part of Myers' research about nuclear waste issues, O'Donovan said. O'Donovan pitched Yucca Mountain story ideas, he said. "West Wing" writers may have been in contact with other Nevada officials, sources said.

Nevada officials have long battled nuclear industry officials on the question of waste shipping safety. Industry officials stress that shipments of high-level radioactive waste have long been made safely.

Officials with the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's top lobby group, will monitor the show, but NEI has not decided whether to respond to the show in some way, such as with an advertisement, spokesman Mitch Singer said.

"There is a big difference between Hollywood and reality," Singer said. "People as they watch can't draw the conclusion that this is how transportation of spent fuel would be."

A spokesman for the Department of Energy, which manages the Yucca project, was skeptical that a television show could have any influence on the fate of the project.

"Based on a West Wing episode, I don't see the Nuclear Regulatory Commission shutting down and 200 scientists at Yucca Mountain shutting their doors and saying, 'Oh my God, we've got to go home.' "

Sun reporter Erin Neff contributed to this story.