Anti-Nuke Group Slams San Onofre with CNN, MSNBC Ad

A commercial slamming the safety record at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station will air on CNN and MSNBC this week.

(See the attached video.)

The commercial is paid for by national anti-nuclear group Friends of the Earth, which has partnered with local San Clemente Green and Residents Organized for a Safe Environment over the last year in their efforts to shutter the San Onofre plant.

San Clemente Green head Gary Headrick announced the commercial at the San Clemente City Council meeting Tuesday.

He also said that his group was starting a grassroots radiation monitoring network in San Clemente using a Geiger counter device that attaches to iPhones and uploads the information to the groups' anti-San Onofre website.

The groups have been clamoring for real-time radiation data from the San Onofre plant--data from about 60 monitors around San Clemente and the plant is now published once a year by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Jen Tucker, San Clemente's emergency planner, ; cell phone signals and people who recently had medical X-rays can throw them off.

Precise monitoring requires technicians to collect air and water samples trapped in montiors, and then test the samples in a lab to determine the nature of the radioactive particles and where they originated, he said.

Additionally, there is a low level of background radiation all over the earth at any given time.

Still, Headrick pointed out that the more iPhone monitors joined the network, the more accurate the picture of actual radiation levels across the city would be.

Currently, there are only two devices hooked into the anti-nuclear group's website.