DOE evaluating media consultants

WASHINGTON -- The Department of Energy is seeking to develop new media and public outreach strategies for when it unveils a long-delayed license application to build a nuclear waste repository in Nevada.

The department is evaluating contract bids for advisers who would help managers on the Yucca Mountain program formulate messages and polish presentations in advance of making the application public.

Spokesman Allen Benson said DOE officials are looking to translate a highly technical science undertaking into terms that can be understood by lay people when it rolls out its license bid to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, possibly next June.

A contract firm also would advise on updating the Yucca Mountain Web site and other supporting materials such as fact sheets and DVDs, and explore new opportunities in streaming video, according to contract documents. Also, the firm would evaluate "an existing community education program and special programs for public schools."

The Energy Department's public communications have been scrutinized and criticized by opponents of the nuclear waste program. Its new bid also drew criticism Tuesday.

"At a time when DOE is crying the blues that they don't have enough money, the notion that they are going to spend an undisclosed amount for what is no more than a PR campaign seems a bit ludicrous to me," said Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev.

Berkley said Nevada lawmakers should call in Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman to seek more information on DOE plans.

"If they are wasting taxpayer money by conducting a PR campaign, we need to ramp up our own efforts in Nevada to provide accurate information," she said.

The House passed an amendment in June cutting off funding for a portal on the Yucca Mountain Web site that describes the nuclear waste project in terms for youngsters after Berkley charged it was thinly veiled propaganda. Congress has yet to take final action on the amendment.

In years past, Nevada leaders sought to restrict DOE advertising for public tours of Yucca Mountain. The tours were conducted for several years but eventually were canceled when the program ran into budget shortages.

Well-known local figures have done public relations work related to Yucca Mountain, among them KLAS-TV reporters George Knapp and Bryan Gresh who in 1991 went to work on behalf of nuclear energy interests. Knapp returned to the station a few years later.

Benson maintained DOE is not launching a "public relations" campaign.

"This is not public relations. That is not what we do," Benson said. "We do not do PR. We inform. We communicate. We take technical information and explain it to the public.

"The license document at this point is going to be between 7,000 and 10,000 pages of highly technical information," Benson said. "The department needs to explain this kind of thing to the public."

Among other things, Benson said, DOE officials have committed to a multi-day public presentation to explain its Yucca research and the license process. The in-depth presentation was suggested by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, he said.

Bob Loux, director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, said DOE officials will try to create public momentum for Yucca Mountain as it heads into a multi-year NRC license review.

"They really are trying to create a climate surrounding the time when the license application gets submitted, to make it seem like a big deal and that they are really headed down the road now," he said.

Nuclear waste burial at the site 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas was supposed to be ready in 1998 but has run into a series of delays because of problems within the program, legal challenges and budget cuts engineered by critics.

A DOE review panel is examining contract bids that were due on July 9. Benson said he did not know when a contract will be awarded. The Energy Department proposed a deal consisting of a base year and four option years, with costs to be determined through the bidding process.

The state of Nevada has a contract that expires this fall with Brown & Partners Advertising, a Las Vegas communications firm, for Yucca Mountain news releases and other assignments.