n520  2345  06 Apr 80
 
BC-REBUT-04-07
     By Claudia Ricci
     (c) 1980 Chicago Sun-Times (Field News Service)
     CHICAGO-For the producers of ''60 Minutes,'' lawsuits and angry
letters are old hat. But an Illinois utility that says it was
unfairly treated by the show has decided to fight film with film.
     Illinois Power Co., which provides electricity to half a million
customers in central Illinois, is circulating a videotape ''reply''
to a ''60 Minutes'' broadcast aired in November.
     The CBS telecast sought to explain why delays and cost overruns
have plagued construction of the company's first nuclear power plant,
Clinton I, near Decatur.
     Produced shortly after the broadcast, the reply consists of the
complete ''60 Minutes'' show with utility insertions to ''expand on
those areas that '60 Minutes' either edited out, presented
incorrectly or chose to ignore,'' a company spokesman said.
     The utility's videotape is a first-of-its-kind effort by a
disgruntled ''60 Minutes'' subject, said Robert Chandler, vice
president of CBS news.
     ''We've had lawsuits,'' he said in an interview. ''We've had
letters, we've had news conferences. But to my knowledge this is the
very first time someone has gone out and produced a tape.''
     Chandler said the utility's program ''was done very slickly, so
slickly that their distortions sound terribly persuasive.''
     Al Adams, an Illinois Power spokesman, disagreed. ''I know slick
when I see it,'' he said. ''(Our reply) is a very home-grown
product.''
     Nearly 600 requests for copies of the videotape have been received
from around the United States, Adams said, mostly from utilities and
other business groups.
     The cost of producing the tape has not been determined, but Adams
said it was not substantial. The costs are considered ''normal
business operating expenses,'' he said, and therefore will be
absorbed by customers.
     Like virtually every nuclear-related issue, the problem of runaway
costs and schedule slippages during plant construction is laced with
controversy.
     For opponents of the Clinton I plant, the furor peaked last fall
when the company asked the Illinois Commerce Commission for an
unprecedented 14 percent rate increase, partly to cover plant
construction costs. Opponents of the increase argued that customers
should not have to shoulder Clinton's construction since the project
had been mismanaged.
     The company originally estimated that the plant would cost $430
million and be operating by June, 1980. It now predicts the cost will
rise to nearly $1.4 billion and that the plant will be completed by
December, 1982.
     The telecast appeared a few days before the commission awarded the
company most of the rate increase it had requested.
     After viewing the reply, CBS's Chandler wrote the company that
except for two minor factual errors, the ''60 Minutes'' broadcast was
fair.
     The ''60 Minutes'' telecast used portions of interviews with the
company vice president and three former employees critical of the
Clinton project.
     In the reply, the utility said the critics had not been employed
long enough to qualify as authorities on the project. The company
faulted ''60 Minutes'' for failing to mention that when one of the
former employees tried to testify during the rate case last fall, it
was revealed he did not possess the educational credentials he had
listed in ''Who's Who'' a few years before.
     CBS responded that although the employee, a former cost engineer,
was not permitted to testify as an expert witness, the Illinois
Commerce Commission nonetheless gave ''full consideration'' to his
testimony.
     ENDIT RICCI
    
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