The Environment: TV Comes Down to Earth : Television: NBC’s ‘Hunter’ takes on toxic waste tonight, Alf tapes an Earth Day spot, KCBS launches a daily report and KTTV declares itself a ‘model’ station.

“I’m already from another planet; I’m not anxious to leave another.”

Late Thursday afternoon, as news reports rolled in about a 300,000-gallon oil spill off the coast in Orange County, Alf, the furry extraterrestrial from NBC’s comedy series “Alf,” was taping this public-service announcement, to be shown on the network on Earth Day, April 22. Alf was encouraging viewers to protect their environment--before it’s too late.

At 10 tonight, on NBC’s “Hunter,” the crime-fighting heroes take on a chemical company, investigating the head of the plant for murder after a child dies from breathing toxic gas created when cyanide waste is illegally dumped in a neighborhood sewer.

These are just two examples of the many environmental messages that TV watchers will be seeing in coming months.

Like last December’s “Prime Time to End Hunger” week, and last year’s “designated driver” campaign to combat drunk driving, various ecology-minded organizations are pushing to make 1990 TV’s year of the environment.

“I can’t speak for the TV industry, but there is definitely a feeling on my part, and the part of our writing staff, that people have to become more aware of their environment,” said Fred Dryer, the executive producer and star of “Hunter.”

“You hear stories about toxic waste and dumping, and the half-life of these chemicals; it makes it difficult to comprehend how unconscionable some of these companies are,” he continued. “They should be held accountable for it.”

While Dryer said that “Hunter” staffers had decided to do an environmental story on their own, new activist groups have sprung up to goad other Hollywood producers into action, joining with the continuing efforts of such organizations as Greenpeace, the National Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club.

Last April, a group of Hollywood heavyweights--including producer Norman Lear, Disney Chairman Michael Eisner and Robert Redford--founded the Environmental Media Assn. in Culver City; also new to the scene are the Los Angeles-based Earth Communications Office and Ted Danson’s American Oceans campaign. The groups organize fund-raisers and meet with studio chiefs and producers about getting more environmental information into their programs and feature films.

Even without specific environmental plot lines, expect TV’s characters to recycle their bottles, cans and plastic containers, to car-pool, to wear T-shirts featuring the logos of environmental organizations, to worry about global warming and deforestation and to demand paper bags instead of plastic at the supermarket.

Andy Spahn, president of the Environmental Media Assn., said that his group serves as a “clearinghouse for information” for producers, rather than trying to exert creative control. The group does, however, offer story suggestions in meetings with producers and has been asked to review some scripts.

“We’re here as a resource,” Spahn said. “Simple behavioral changes like recycling or energy conservation, what kind of bag you take at a supermarket, all those kinds of things are very easily depicted within the context of a show. . . . In this case, there is such a tremendous level of concern about the environment, people want to know what they can do. The industry is reflecting what is happening.”

1990 will host a long list of special ecology programming. On Earth Day, ABC will present a two-hour “Earth Day Special” featuring Quincy Jones, Bette Midler, Meryl Streep and Kevin Costner, among other stars. Cable’s MTV will feature animated public-service announcements to appeal to young viewers; HBO and Turner Entertainment Network both plan movies with environmental themes. “Profit the Earth” will air April 16 as part of a programming campaign that PBS has dubbed “Year of the Environment.”

Locally, KCBS Channel 2 has launched a daily environmental spot, “Steve Rambo’s Daily Planet,” during its 5 p.m. newscast, and KTTV Channel 11 has declared itself “a model environmental station,” altering its office operations to reflect a new dedication to the environment, as well as adding more environment-themed programs to its schedule.

CBS may even introduce a prime-time series about environmental crusaders called “The Elite.” Richard Chapman, co-executive producer of the two-hour pilot with Bill Dial, said that the intent is to focus not only on environmental crimes, but also on natural disasters brought about by misuse of environmental resources--such as an avalanche in Switzerland triggered by deforestation, which leads to a group of train passengers being trapped beneath the snow in a tunnel, or the near-extinction of Indian tribes in the Brazilian rain forest as a result of a modern-day gold rush.

“The media is saturated with these large, bewildering issues,” Chapman said. “We have the charge of boiling it all down into human terms.”

David Simon, a producer of NBC’s “My Two Dads,” said that working with the Environmental Media Assn. has only solidified his own concerns.

“I have this theory that the ‘60s are here again,” he said. “In the ‘60s, we were kids--we were concerned, but there was nothing we could really do about it. But now we’re in positions in government, and in the media, to do something about the things we care passionately about.”

Simon and other producers acknowledged that environmental themes may sometimes conflict with the goals of TV’s advertisers.

An upcoming “My Two Dads” episode, for example, deals with trying to kill a cockroach without using pesticides. “What if the sponsor were Raid?” Simon said. To avoid such potential conflicts, he explained, “You color all of your product references, you make indirect statements--you have to protect where the buck is. This is a capitalist society.”

On “Hunter,” too, said Dryer, “We don’t name companies. Every major company has toxic waste problems; we’re not asking people not to buy products because of that.”

At “thirtysomething,” co-executive producer Marshall Herskovitz has a different concern. His ABC series called on the Environmental Media Assn. to help develop a story line this season involving a protest against the construction of an incinerator. Ironically, the incinerator episodes were also touted as part of the “Prime Time to End Hunger” campaign last December because they dealt with volunteerism. The show also ran an 800 number for cancer information on recent episodes about a character’s bout with cancer.

“All of a sudden, we’re in danger of looking like the very thing that I’ve feared--that we have some sort of pro-social agenda, that the show wants to change people’s minds about things,” Herskovitz said.

“We are basically going about our business, telling the stories we want to tell,” he maintained. “But in the course of that, we’ve been able to help out certain very benign groups. It’s not like we’re trying to follow some trend.”