When it comes to tarnishing a region’s image in the wake of an environmental disaster, the media can be an accomplice to the disaster itself. The now-famed photograph of the three kayakers afloat in an acidic orange Animas River after the Aug. 5 Gold King Mine spill may have contributed to the pollution of Durango’s and Silverton’s reputations, but it’s difficult to measure the extent.
According to one media monitoring firm, press coverage about the Gold King spill that deposited 3 million gallons of mining wastewater into the Animas amounted to an estimated $4 million if media articles were quantified in dollars spent on advertising space. The Durango Area Tourism Office recently shared that figure, which was supplied by Arizona-based consultants BurrellesLuce. The company periodically provides the tourism office with reports on the area’s press coverage.
While DATO is asking $345,000 of the Environmental Protection Agency, which has taken responsibility for the spill, to help boost the area’s appeal through advertising and marketing, Executive Director Bob Kunkel said DATO isn’t overwrought about the spill’s effect on the tourism industry.
“We’re not running around with our hair on fire, shrieking, because how do you qualify the ($4 million) number?” Kunkel said. “We don’t put that much stock into it, because we don’t know how it’s calculated. And are we talking about the prairie newspaper in Iowa, or The Wall Street Journal? I think people take it with a grain of salt.”
Johna Burke, BurrellesLuce executive vice president of Marketing and Sales, said the company does not quote figures equivalent to public relations costs but rather the cost of column inches. “We don’t call it equivalency, because there are a lot of schools of thought on the credibility of different coverage,” she said. The number means, in other words, that if DATO purchased the Gold King media coverage as advertising space, it would have cost $4 million.
Press coverage of an incident like the mine spill is not as influential to locals as to those who don’t live here, said Fort Lewis College professor Larry Hartsfield, who teaches a course on how media dictates perceptions. He said fragmented and biased coverage can skew outside perception, and unless that coverage is countered – and readers continue to follow the story – there can potentially be long-term effects.
“Advertising can have a positive impact, but it’s such a complex issue today where most people have learned to ignore ads to some degree,” Hartsfield said. “It depends where the ads are placed and whether people pay attention to them.”
DATO anticipates a smaller budget in 2016 and a changing tourism landscape in the long-term; tourism will constantly have to work against the uncertainty of the gas industry and other latent mining mishaps down the road. To keep Durango area’s image strong to outsiders coming in, DATO will dedicate lodgers tax revenue and a future EPA reimbursement to that purpose.
DATO isn’t alone in its efforts to reinforce positive perception; Trout Unlimited is hoping to secure grant money that could be used in part to counteract impacts of bad press.
Trout Unlimited, one of the nation’s leading lobbyists for clean rivers and a healthy fish environment, is submitting a grant application, next week, through American Rivers, another major conservation organization.
Animas River coordinator Ty Churchwell said if Trout Unlimited receives the grant, which would be for an unspecified amount, some of the funds could buy ads relaying to the world that “Durango and Silverton are open for business,” particularly concerning river sports and recreation.
“We were working on Good Samaritan legislation before the spill occurred,” Churchwell said. “In the wake of it, we’re pursuing a more Animas River-directed comprehensive plan. This (grant) could be employed for parts of that purpose. In the fishing/boating community, there is certainly still a vision out there that the Animas is still running orange, that it died, and we all know that’s not true.”
jpace@durangoherald.com