PR's Secret War on Activists
by John Stauber & Sheldon Rampton
Deforming Consent:
"The 20th century has been characterized by three developments of great
political importance: the growth of democracy, the growth of corporate
power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting
corporate power against democracy." --Alex Carey *1
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All Lynn Tylczak wanted to do was keep a few kids from being poisoned. A
housewife in Oregon, her imagination was captured by a PBS documentary
about a technique used in Europe to prevent children from accidentally
swallowing household poisons. Common antifreeze, for example, is made of
ethylene glycol, whose sweet taste and smell belies its highly poisonous
nature. As little as two teaspoons can cause death or blindness. About 700
children under the age of six are exposed to antifreeze each year, and it
is the leading cause of accidental animal poisoning affecting both pets and
wild animals. *2 European antifreeze makers poison-proof their products by
adding the cbitterant -- denatonium benzoate. Two cents worth makes a
gallon of antifreeze taste so vile that kids spit it out the instant it
touches their mouth. Tylczak launched a one-woman crusade, the cPoison
Proof Project& to persuade antifreeze makers to add bitterant. Her story
made the New York Times and Oprah Winfrey, prompting a swift backlash from
antifreeze makers. She remembers one company's PR representative
threatening that he could pay someone $2,000 to have her shot if she didn't
back off. When Tylczak began pushing for legislation to require bitterant,
another PR firm was sent into the breach: National Grassroots and
Communications, which specializes in passing and defeating legislation at
the federal and state level. Tylczak had never even heard of the firm until
its CEO, Pamela Whitney, made the mistake of bragging about her exploits at
a PR trade seminar. The key to winning anything is opposition research, she
said. We set up an operation where we posed as representatives of the
estate of an older lady who had died and wanted to leave quite a bit of
money to an organization that helped both children and animals. We went in
and met with [Tylczak] and said, `We want to bequeath $100,000 to an
organization; you're one of three that we are targeting to look at. Give us
all of your financial records..., all of your game plan for the following
year, and the states you want to target and how you expect to win. We'll
get back to you.' *3 Whitney claimed that the records she received
contained two bombshells: The Poison Proof Project's tax-exempt status had
lapsed, and it had taken funding from bitterant manufacturers. Without
leaving any fingerprints or any traces, Whitney boasted, we then got word
through the local media and killed the bill in all the states. *4 When the
story got back to Tylczak, she noted that only $100 of the $50,000 in
family savings spent on the campaign came from bitterant makers. She's got
a very foolish client, Tylczak said. Her story has got more bullshit than a
cattle ranch. In fact, she noted, her bill requiring bitterant did pass in
Oregon. What did the PR industry accomplish in its battle against Lynn
Tylczak? Were news stories or legislation killed because of Whitney's
intervention? In this and other cases, the degree of success PR firms have
in manipulating public opinion and policy is almost impossible to
determine. By design, the PR industry carefully conceals many of its
activities. Persuasion, by its definition, is subtle, says one PR
executive. The best PR ends up looking like news. You never know when a PR
agency is being effective; you'll just find your views slowly shifting. *5
Using money provided by its special interest clients usually large
corporations, business associations and governments the PR industry has
vast power to direct and control thought and policy. It can mobilize
private detectives, lawyers, and spies; influence editorial and news
decisions; broadcast faxes; generate letters; launch phony grassroots
campaigns; and use high-tech information systems such as satellite feeds
and internet sites. Activist groups and concerned individuals often fail to
recognize the techniques and assess the impact of PR campaigns. And indeed,
with its $10 billion-a-year bankroll and its array of complex,
sophisticated persuasive weaponry, the PR industry can often outmaneuver,
overpower, and outlast true citizen reformers. Identifying the techniques
of the industry and understanding how they work are the first steps in
fighting back.
SPIES FOR HIRE
In 1990, David Steinman's book, Diet for a Poisoned Planet, was scheduled
for publication. Based on five years of research, it detailed evidence that
hundreds of carcinogens, pesticides, and other toxins contaminate the US
food chain. It documented, for example, that raisins had 110 industrial
chemical and pesticide residues in 16 samples, and recommended buying only
organically grown varieties. *6
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Diet for a Poisoned Planet enabled readers to make safer food choices. But
before they could use the information, they had to know about the book so
that they could buy and read it. In the weeks after it came out, Steinman's
publisher scheduled the usual round of media reviews and interviews, not
suspecting that the California Raisin Advisory Board (CALRAB) had already
launched a campaign to ensure that Steinman's book would be dead on
arrival. The stakes were high. In 1986, CALRAB had scored big with a series
of clever TV commercials using the California Dancing Raisins that pushed
up raisin sales by 17 percent. Steinman's book threatened to trip up the
careful PR choreography. To kill the Steinman book, CALRAB hired Ketchum PR
Worldwide, whose $50 million a year in net fees made it the country's sixth
largest public relations company. Months before the publication of Diet for
a Poisoned Planet, Ketchum sought to obtain [a] copy of [the] book galleys
or manuscript and publisher's tour schedule, wrote senior vice-president
Betsy Gullickson in a secret September 7, 1990 memo outlining the PR firm's
plan to manage the crisis. "All documents...are confidential. Make sure
that everything even notes to yourself are so stamped. ... Remember that we
have a shredder; give documents to Lynette for shredding. All conversations
are confidential, too. Please be careful talking in the halls, in
elevators, in restaurants, etc. All suppliers must sign confidentiality
agreements. If you are faxing documents to the client, another office or to
anyone else, call them to let them know that a fax is coming. If you are
expecting a fax, you or your Account Coordinator should stand by the
machine and wait for it. "*7
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Gullickson's memo outlined a plan to assign broad areas of responsibility,
such as intelligence/information gathering, to specific Ketchum employees
and to Gary Obenauf of CALRAB. She recommended that spokespeople conduct
one-on-one briefings/interviews with the trade and general consumer media
in the markets most acutely interested in the issue .... [Ketchum] is
currently attempting to get a tour schedule so that we can `shadow'
Steinman's appearances; best scenario: we will have our spokesman in town
prior to or in conjunction with Steinman's appearances. *8 After an
informant involved with the book's marketing campaign passed Ketchum a list
of Steinman's talk show bookings, Ketchum employees called each show. The
PR firm then made a list of key media to receive low-key phone inquiries.
They tried to depict Steinman as an off-the-wall extremist without
credibility, or argued that it was only fair that the other side be
presented. A number of programs canceled or failed to air interviews. In
the end, an important contribution to the public debate over health, the
environment, and food safety fell victim to a PR campaign designed to
prevent it from ever reaching the marketplace of ideas.9
DIVIDE AND CONQUER
Ronald Duchin, senior vice-president of another PR spy firm Mongoven,
Biscoe, and Duchin would probably have labeled Steinman and Tylczak
radicals. A graduate of the US Army War College, Duchin worked as a special
assistant to the secretary of defense and director of public affairs for
the Veterans of Foreign Wars before becoming a flack. Activists, he
explained, fall into four categories: radicals, opportunists, idealists,
and realists. He follows a three-step strategy to neutralize them: 1)
isolate the radicals; 2) cultivate the idealists and educate them into
becoming realists; then 3) co-opt the realists into agreeing with industry.
According to Duchin, radical activists:
"want to change the system; have underlying socio/political motives [and]
see multinational corporations as inherently evil....These organizations do
not trust the... federal, state and local governments to protect them and
to safeguard the environment. They believe, rather, that individuals and
local groups should have direct power over industry. ... I would categorize
their principal aims right now as social justice and political
empowerment."
Idealists are also hard to deal with. They want a perfect world and find it
easy to brand any product or practice which can be shown to mar that
perfection as evil. Because of their intrinsic altruism, however, and
because they have nothing perceptible to be gained by holding their
position, they are easily believed by both the media and the public, and
sometimes even politicians. However, idealists have a vulnerable point. If
they can be shown that their position in opposition to an industry or its
products causes harm to others and cannot be ethically justified, they are
forced to change their position.... Thus, while a realist must be
negotiated with, an idealist must be educated. Generally this education
process requires great sensitivity and understanding on the part of the
educator. Opportunists and realists, says Duchin, are easier to manipulate.
Opportunists engage in activism seeking visibility, power, followers and,
perhaps, even employment. ... The key to dealing with [them] is to provide
them with at least the perception of a partial victory. And realists are
able to live with trade-offs; willing to work within the system; not
interested in radical change; pragmatic. [They] should always receive the
highest priority in any strategy dealing with a public policy issue. ... If
your industry can successfully bring about these relationships, the
credibility of the radicals will be lost and opportunists can be counted on
to share in the final policy solution. *10
BEST FRIENDS MONEY CAN BUY
Another crude but effective way to derail potentially meddlesome activists
is simply to hire them. In early 1993, Carol Tucker Foreman, former
executive director of the Consumer Federation of America, took a job for
what is rumored to be an exceptionally large fee as a personal lobbyist for
bovine growth hormone (rBGH), the controversial milk hormone produced by
chemical giant Monsanto. With Foreman's help, Monsanto has successfully
prevented Congress or the FDA from requiring labeling of milk from cows
injected with rBGH. In fact, the company used threats of lawsuits to
intimidate dairy retailers and legislators who wanted to label their milk
rBGH-free. While she is helping Monsanto wage its all-out campaign for
rBGH, Foreman is also the coordinator and lobbyist for the Safe Food
Coalition, an alliance of consumer advocacy, senior citizen, whistle blower
protection, and labor organizations. Formed by Foreman in 1987, the
Coalition's members include such public interest heavyweights as Michael
Jacobson's Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), Ralph Nader's
Public Citizen, and Public Voice for Food and Health Policy. *11 Foreman
said she saw no conflict of interest in simultaneously representing rBGH
and the Safe Food Coalition. The FDA has said rBGH is safe, she explained,
adding Why don't you call CSPI; they say rBGH is safe too? Asked how much
money she has received from Monsanto to lobby for rBGH, she angrily
retorted, What in the world business is that of yours? Her D.C. consulting
firm, Foreman & Heidepriem, refused to provide further information and
referred journalists to Monsanto's PR department. *12
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BOTH SIDES OF THE STREET
William Novelli, a founder of the New York-based Porter/Novelli PR firm,
cheerfully uses the term cross-pollination to describe his company's
technique of orchestrating collusion between clients with seemingly
conflicting interests. By donating free work to health-related charities,
for example, Porter/Novelli gains leverage to pressure the charities into
supporting the interests of the firm's paying corporate clients. In 1993,
this strategy paid off when produce growers and pesticide manufacturers
represented by Porter/Novelli learned that PBS was about to air a
documentary by Bill Moyers on pesticide-related cancer risks to children.
The PR firm turned to the American Cancer Society (ACS), to which it had
provided decades of free services. The national office of ACS dutifully
issued a memo charging that the Moyers program makes unfounded
suggestions...that pesticide residues in food may be at hazardous levels.
The industry then cited the memo as evidence that Moyers' documentary
overstated dangers to children from pesticides. *13 Hill & Knowlton
executive Nina Oligino used a similar cross-pollination technique in 1994
to line up national environmental groups behind Partners for Sun Protection
Awareness, a front group for Hill & Knowlton's client, Schering-Plough.
Best known for Coppertone sun lotion, the drug transnational uses the
Partners to educate the public to the dangers of skin cancer, cataracts,
and damaged immune systems caused by a thinning ozone layer and an increase
in ultraviolet radiation. *14 In the past, Hill & Knowlton has also worked
for corporate clients who hired them to disprove or belittle the
environmental warnings of global climate change.15 Seamlessly shifting
gears into environmentalist mode, Hill & Knowlton convinced leaders of the
Natural Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club to add their names to
the Partners for Sun Protection letterhead. A representative (who asked not
to be named) of one of the environmental groups said he was ignorant of the
Schering-Plough funding and its hidden agenda to sell sun lotion. Had he
examined the Partners campaign, however, he might have noticed that it
offered no proposals for preventing further ozone depletion and failed to
mention that covering up completely was the best sun screen of all.
Instead, the primary action the drug company-funded coalition recommended
was to liberally apply a sunscreen...to all exposed parts of the body
before going outdoors. One of the campaign's clever video news releases
shows scores of sexy, scantily-clad sun worshippers overexposing themselves
to UV rays, while slathering on suntan oil. *16
SYNTHETIC GRASSROOTS
PR firms often bypass activist organizations and custom design their own
grassroots citizen movements using rapidly evolving high-tech data and
communications systems. Known in the trade as astroturf, this tactic is
defined by Campaigns & Elections magazine as a grassroots program that
involves the instant manufacturing of public support for a point of view in
which either uninformed activists are recruited or means of deception are
used to recruit them. *17 Astroturf is particularly useful in countering
NIMBY or Not in my back yard movements community groups organizing to stop
their neighborhood from hosting a toxic waste dump, porno bookstore, or
other unwanted invaders. John Davies, who helps neutralize these groups on
behalf of corporate clients such as Mobil Oil, Hyatt Hotels, Exxon, and
American Express, describes himself as one of America's premier grassroots
consultants. His ad in Campaigns & Elections (see p. 18) is designed to
strike terror into the heart of even the bravest CEO. It features a photo
of the enemy: a little old white-haired lady holding a hand-lettered sign,
Not In My Backyard! The caption warns, Don't leave your future in her
hands. Traditional lobbying is no longer enough....To outnumber your
opponents, call Davies Communications. *18 Davies promises to make a
strategically planned program look like a spontaneous explosion of
community support for needy corporate clients by using mailing lists and
computer databases to identify potential supporters. He claims his
telemarketers will make passive supporters appear to be concerned
advocates. We want to assist them with letter writing. We get them on the
phone [and say], `Will you write a letter?' `Sure.' `Do you have time to
write it?' `Not really.' `Could we write it for you?... Just hold, we have
a writer standing by.' Another Davies employee then helps create what
appears to be a personal letter. If the appropriate public official is
close by, we hand-deliver it. We hand-write it out on `little kitty cat
stationery' if it's a little old lady. If it's a business we take it over
to be photocopied on someone's letterhead. [We] use different stamps,
different envelopes.... Getting a pile of personalized letters that have a
different look to them is what you want to strive for. *19
BLENDING IN
Grassroots PR is the specialty of Pamela Whitney at National Grassroots &
Communications, the firm that spied on Lynn Tylczak. My company basically
works for major corporations and we do new market entries, she says.
Wal-Mart is one of our clients. We take on the NIMBYs and
environmentalists. They also work for companies who want to do a better job
of communicating to their employees because they want to remain union-free.
They aren't quite sure how to do it, so we go in and set that up. One of
National Grassroots' first tasks, after information gathering/spying, is to
set up its own local organizations by hiring local ambassadors who know the
community inside and out to be our advocates, and then we work with them,
explains Whitney. They report to us. They are on our payroll, but it's for
a very small amount of money. [O]ur best community ambassadors are women
who have possibly been head of their local PTA; they are very active in
their local community or women who are retired and who have a lot of time
on their hands. They are supervised by professionals with field organizing
experience on electoral campaigns who can drop in the middle of nowhere and
in two weeks they have an organization set up and ready to go. These
professional grassroots organizers dress carefully to avoid looking like
the high-priced, out-of-town hired guns they really are. When I go to a
zoning board meeting, Whitney explained, I wear absolutely no make-up, I
comb my hair straight back in a ponytail, and I wear my kids' old clothes.
You don't want to look like you're someone from Washington, or someone from
a corporation.... People hate outsiders; it's just human nature. *20 With
enough money, the same techniques can be applied on a national scale. As
the health care debate heated up in the early days of the Clinton
administration, Blair G. Childs masterminded the Coalition for Health
Insurance Choices (CHIC). An insurance industry front group, CHIC received
major funding from the National Federation of Independent Businesses and
the Health Insurance Association of America (HIAA), a trade group of
insurance companies. According to Consumer Reports, The HIAA doesn't just
support the coalition; it created it from scratch. 21 Health reform
opponents used opinion polling to develop a point-by-point list of
vulnerabilities in the Clinton administration proposal and organized over
20 separate coalitions to hammer away at each point. Each group chose a
name with a general positive reaction....That's where focus group and
survey work can be very beneficial, explained Childs. `Fairness,'
`balance,' `choice,' `coalition,' and `alliance' are all words that
resonate very positively. *22 Childs, who has been organizing grassroots
support for the insurance industry for a decade, wasn't the only PR genius
behind the anti-health care campaign, but his coalition can honestly claim
the kill. CHIC's multi-coalition strategy assured numbers and cover, and
took advantage of different strengths. Some have lobby strength, some have
grassroots strength, and some have good spokespersons, Childs said. In its
campaign against mandatory health alliances, CHIC drew in everyone from the
homeless Vietnam veterans....to some very conservative groups. *23 It also
sponsored the legendary Harry and Louise TV spot which, according to the
New York Times, 'symbolized everything that went wrong with the great
health care struggle of 1994: A powerful advertising campaign, financed by
the insurance industry, that played on people's fears and helped derail the
process. *24 CHIC and the other coalitions also used direct mail and
phoning, coordinated with daily doses of misinformation from radio
blowtorch Rush Limbaugh, to spread fears that government health care would
bankrupt the country, reduce the quality of care, and lead to jail terms
for people who wanted to stick with their family doctor. Childs explained
how his coalition used paid ads on the Limbaugh show to generate thousands
of citizen phone calls from the show's 20 million listeners. First,
Limbaugh would whip up his fans with a calculated rant against the Clinton
plan. Then, during a commercial break, listeners would hear an anti-health
care ad and an 800 number to call for more information. The call would ring
a telemarketer who would ask a few questions, then patch them through
electronically to their congressmembers' office. Staffers fielding the
resulting barrage of phone calls typically had no idea that the
constituents had been primed, loaded, aimed, and fired at them by radio ads
paid for by the insurance industry, with the goal of orchestrating the
appearance of overwhelming grassroots opposition to health reform. *25 When
the health care debate began in 1993, Childs said, popular demand for
change was so strong that the insurance industry was looking down the
barrel of a gun. By 1994, industry's hired PR guns had shot down every
proposal for reform.
MANAGING THE MEDIA
Many PR pros think that the media, both national and local, are easier to
handle than the public. To begin with, the media itself is a huge,
profitable business, the domain of fewer and fewer giant transnational
corporations. Not surprisingly, these transnationals often find that their
corporate agenda and interest are compatible with, or even identical to,
the goals of the PR industry's biggest clients. While this environment may
be demoralizing to responsible journalists, it offers a veritable hog
heaven to the public relations industry. In their 1985 book, Jeff and Marie
Blyskal write that
"PR people know how the press thinks. Thus, they are able to tailor
their publicity so that journalists will listen and cover it. As a
result much of the news you read in newspapers and magazines or
watch on television and hear on radio is heavily influenced and
slanted by public relations people. Whole sections of the news are
virtually owned by PR....Newspaper food pages are a PR man's
paradise, as are the entertainment, automotive, real estate, home
improvement and living sections... Unfortunately, `news' hatched by
a PR person and journalist working together looks much like real
news dug up by enterprising journalists working independently. The
public thus does not know which news stories and journalists are
playing servant to PR.26 "
As a result, notes a senior vice-president with Gray & Company public
relations, Most of what you see on TV is, in effect, a canned PR product.
Most of what you read in the paper and see on television is not news. *27
The blurring of news and ads accelerated in the 1980s, when PR firms
discovered that they could film, edit, and produce their own news segments
even entire programs and that broadcasters would play them as news, often
with no editing. Video news releases (VNRs), typically come packaged with
two versions: The first is fully edited, with voiceovers pre-recorded or
scripted for a local anchor to read. The second, a B-roll, is raw footage
that the station can edit and combine with tape from other sources. There
are two economics at work here on the television side, explains a Gray &
Company executive. The big stations don't want prepackaged, pretaped. They
have the money, the budget, and the manpower to put their own together. But
the smaller stations across the country lap up stuff like this. *28 With
few exceptions, broadcasters as a group have refused to consider standards
for VNRs, in part because they rarely admit to airing them. But when
MediaLink the PR firm that distributed about half of the 4,000 VNRs made
available to newscasters in 1991 surveyed 92 newsrooms, it found that all
had used VNRs supplied free by PR firms. CBS Evening News, for example, ran
a segment on the hazards of automatic safety belts created by a lobby group
largely supported by lawyers. *29
CYBERJUNK MAIL
The PR industry is innovating rapidly and expanding into cyberspace. Hyped
as the ultimate in electronic democracy, the information superhighway will
supposedly offer a global cornucopia of programming offering instant,
inexpensive access to nearly infinite libraries of data, educational
material and entertainment. But as computer technology brings a
user-friendlier version of the internet to a wider spectrum of users, it
has attracted intense corporate interest. Given that a handful of
corporations now control most media, media historian Robert McChesney finds
it is no surprise that the private sector, with its immense resources, has
seized the initiative and is commercializing cyberspace at a spectacular
rate effectively transforming it into a giant shopping mall. *30 PR firms
are jumping on the online bandwagon, establishing world wide web sites and
using surveys and games to gather marketing and opinion information about
the users of cyberspace, and developing new techniques to target and reach
reporters and other online users. Today, with many more options available,
PR professionals are much less dependent upon mass media for publicity,
writes industry pro Kirk Hallahan in Public Relations Quarterly. In the
decade ahead, the largest American corporations could underwrite entire,
sponsored channels. ... [which] will be able to reach coveted super-heavy
users ... with a highly tailored message over which [corporations could]
exert complete control. *31
FIGHTING BACK AT FLACKS
The groups that most scare the PR industry are the local grassroots groups
they derisively label NIMBYs. Unlike national environmental groups and
other professional reformers, the local groups are hard to manipulate
precisely because they aren't wired in to the systems that PR firms like to
manipulate. Most Not in My Backyard activists commit to a cause after some
personal experience drives them to get involved. Typically, they act as
individuals or with small groups of citizens who come together to address a
local, immediate threat to their lives, cities and neighborhoods. They are
often treated with contempt by the professional environmentalists, health
advocates and other public interest organizations headquartered in
Washington, D.C. Many times, they lack organizing expertise and money. They
don't have budgets or polished grant proposals needed to obtain funding
from foundations and major donors. But corporations and the US government
are spending tens of millions of dollars on PR and lobbying to fight these
local community activists. The most visible manifestations of NIMBYism, and
its biggest success stories, have been in stopping toxic waste sites and
toxin-belching incinerators from invading communities. Author Mark Dowie
sees this new wave of grassroots democracy as the best hope for realizing
the public's well-documented desire for a clean and healthy environment in
sustainable balance with nature. Today, grassroots anti-toxic
environmentalism is a far more serious threat to polluting industries than
the mainstream environmental movement, Dowie writes. Not only do local
activists network, share tactics, and successfully block many dump sites
and industrial developments, they also stubbornly refuse to surrender or
compromise. They simply cannot afford to. Their activities and success are
gradually changing the acronym NIMBY to NIABY Not In Anybody's Backyard. 32
But before that can happen, local groups need to develop a strategy for
confronting the powers-that-be in their backyard, and that means learning
to recognize and fight the techniques of PR. Until they learn this lesson,
local activists may continue to win local battles, while finding themselves
outmaneuvered and outgunned at the national level.
MAKING SLUDGE LOOK GOOD
One of the PR industry's most shocking disasters-in-progress is its
campaign to clean up the image of toxic sewage sludge so that
unsuspecting farmers will spread it as fertilizer on farm fields.
If the Water Environment Federation (WEF) has its way, you'll soon
be routinely eating fruits and vegetables fertilized with sewage
sludge containing heavy metals, dangerous viruses, dioxins, PCBs,
pesticides and hundreds of other toxic substances.
We learned about the WEF's campaign by accident as we were working
on our new book about the PR industry, Toxic Sludge Is Good For
You. This satiric title turned prophetic when we received a phone
call from WEF Director of Information Nancy Blatt, begging us to
come up with a different name. She was worried that the title might
undermine WEF's campaign, funded with $300,000 from the
Environmental Protection Agency, to educate the public about the
beneficial uses of sludge. It's not toxic, and we're launching a
campaign to get people to stop calling it sludge. We call it
`biosolids,' Blatt explained.
The WEF's own name is a euphemism. Formerly known as the Federation
of Sewage and Industrial Wastes Associations, it is the main lobby
association for US sewage treatment plants, with over 41,000
members, a multimillion-dollar budget, and a 100-member staff.1 It
is working closely with the EPA to persuade farmers and food
processors that sewage sludge is a beneficial fertilizer.
In addition to sludge, tons of money are at stake for America's
15,000 publicly-owned wastewater treatment plants. Sewage plants
detoxify more than 120 million pounds of contaminants each year
using heat, chemicals, and bacterial treatments: 42 percent is
dissipated through biodegradation, 25 percent escapes into the
atmosphere, and 19 percent is discharged into lakes and streams.
The remaining 14 percent about 18 million pounds winds up as sewage
sludge, a viscous, semisolid mixture of bacteria- and virus-laden
organic matter, toxic metals, synthetic organic chemicals, and
settled solids. 2
Virtually everything undesirable in the world an estimated 60,000
toxic substances and chemical compounds, plus radioactive
contaminants gets flushed down the drain and winds up in sewage
sludge. Once created, it must be disposed of. Some goes into
landfills. Some gets incinerated. New York and other cities used to
dump it into the ocean until oceanographers pointed out that it was
killing the seas. The EPA has chosen to push for the cheapest
disposal method available spreading the gunk on farm fields.
As early as 1981, the agency sensed that this approach would
encounter inevitable PR problems, warning that the growing
awareness about hazardous wastes and the inadequacy of their past
disposal practices will inevitably increase public skepticism. ...
[Citizens who] feel their interests threatened [may] often mount a
significant campaign against a project. To counter this opposition,
the agency advised project advocates to choose a strategy of either
aggressive or passive public relations. *3
The task is tricky since sludge has not only a bad image, but a
poor record as well. Many scientists are appalled by the potential
public health hazards. Land spreading of sewage sludge is not a
true `disposal' method, but rather serves only to transfer the
pollutants in the sludge from the treatment plant to the soil, air
and ground water of the disposal site, says Dr. Stanford Tackett, a
chemist and expert on lead contamination. *4
A LITTLE EDUCATION IS A DANGEROUS THING WEF's
National Biosolids Public Acceptance Campaign is masterminded by
Powell Tate, a blue-chip Washington-based PR/lobby firm that
specializes in public relations around controversial high-tech,
safety and health issues, with clients from the tobacco,
pharmaceutical, electronics, and airlines industries. Jody Powell
was President Jimmy Carter's press secretary and confidant. Sheila
Tate similarly served Vice-President George Bush and First Lady
Nancy Reagan. Tate is also the chair of the Corporation for Public
Broadcasting.
Private waste disposal firms such as Enviro-Gro Technologies (a
sludge hauler now operating under the name Wheele- brator) also
rely heavily on PR pros to convince the public that toxic waste is
good for it. Kelly Sarber, a PR specialist in sludge crisis
management, is especially proud of her PR work in 1991-92, when she
quietly lined up business leaders and politicians to help
Enviro-Gro target the small rural town of Holly, Colorado as a
dumping site for New York City sludge.
It's a scary thing at first to take New York's waste and spread it
on the land that supports you, Sarber admitted. In fact to some
people it's the most scary thing they can think of. But after a
little education, most people eventually come around. *5
Sarber dropped the education euphemism in a paper aimed at PR
professionals where she called controlling the debate ... the most
important goal of a good campaign manager. As part of her strategy,
Sarber also recommends targeting the local media with a a
pre-emptive strike to get positive messages out about the project
before the counter-messages start.
When the proper groundwork had been laid in Holly, Sarber's
pro-sludge campaign struck like a blitzkrieg, deploying third-party
scientific advocates to assure local citizens of the safety of
sludge and using local opinion leaders to persuade other community
members that they had taken the time to learn about the project and
are comfortable with it from an environmental standpoint. When Gov.
Romer threw a shovel full of New York City biosolids on a Colorado
field, Sarber said, it was apparent that the initial siting of the
project had been successful. *6 -30-
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