Clear Channel and Viacom refuse Sierra Club ads

Clear Channel Outdoor and Viacom turned down the Sierra Club's request to run Valleywide ads that take aim at Salt River Project of Phoenix.

Sierra Club member Andy Bessler signed on with Clear Channel to launch a billboard campaign that calls for the protection of Zuni Salt Lake in Zuni, N.M., from SRP mining. The billboard messages were to read: "SRP is targeting our sacred lands. Save Zuni Salt Lake."

SRP spokesman Jeff Lane said the company is slated to begin construction on the Fence Lake Coal Mine this year, which will deliver coal to its Coronado Generating Station near St. Johns in eastern Arizona in 2005. The station delivers electricity to the Phoenix area and supplies 90,000 customers out of SRP's 785,000 Valley customers, Lane said.

The Fence Lake Coal Mine is 45 miles east of the station and 12 miles away from Zuni Salt Lake. Opponents to the mining say SRP will drain Zuni Salt Lake for use at the mine. Lane said SRP's mining will "not adversely affect Zuni Lake."

Clear Channel Outdoor Phoenix President Manny Molina returned a check for $25,000 to the Sierra Club citing "personal unease with the message," Bessler said. Molina also said he did not want "companies duking it out on our billboards," according to Bessler.

The Sierra Club is part of the Zuni Salt Lake Coalition, which also includes the Center for Biological Diversity, the Citizen's Coal Council and the Water Information Network. The regional groups have members in Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico.

Sierra Club spokeswoman Camilla Feibelman said the coalition took the ads to Viacom, which also turned them down.

Coalition officials say Clear Channel and Viacom do "large volumes of business" with SRP and that "unfair conflicts of interest" by the outdoor ad firms favor the utility and "limit America's most sacred public trust: freedom of speech."

Clear Channel account executive Casey Treadwell said the company saw the artwork as too controversial.

"We disagreed with parts of the ads. If there's something that will create a lot of problems or target someone in a way that we disagree with, we can cancel the contract," he said. "It's a national corporate policy."