(Associated Press) This photo shows an aerial photograph after the first atomic explosion at the Trinity Proving Ground in New Mexico on July 16, 1945.
After years of hard work, Radiation Exposure Compensation Act With (RECA) expanded by Congress, we finally see an unexpected glimmer of hope.last minute fix National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), passed by the Senate last week With 61 votes, we will expand RECA to the entire state of Utah, giving more downwind residents access to a program that has become a lifeline for many.
Holy Lujan Crapo Amendment The plan was inspired by bipartisan cooperation between Sen. Josh Hawley (R. Missouri), Sen. Ben Ray Lujan (D. New Mexico) and Sen. Mike Crapo (R. Idaho). It is the product of an instant. In addition to extending RECA for 19 years, this amendment would extend the program to all of Idaho, New Mexico, Montana, Colorado, Utah, Arizona and Nevada, as well as additional grants, many on tribal lands. Expanded to cover uranium mining communities. These include communities exposed to fallout from Trinity, the first nuclear test conducted in Los Alamos, New Mexico in 1945, and residents of Missouri exposed to radioactive waste from the Manhattan Project. included.
The strengthening of RECA had the support of conservatives such as Ted Cruz and Lindsay Graham, but disturbingly, Senators Mike Lee and Mitt Romney voted against the amendment. Nonetheless, expanding RECA will be a godsend for voters in northern Utah, who have been hard-pressed to be excluded from RECA. A life-threatening illness occurred as a result of exposure to fallout from nuclear testing in Nevada.
The passage of this amendment is a huge victory for those of us in the downwind regions of the country who have been dedicated to seeking recognition and justice. But as we all know, victories can be temporary. The expansion will now have a tougher fight, as it will have to survive a conference committee to resolve differences between the House and Senate versions of the NDAA.
Yet we remain hopeful. The stars seem to be united in bringing the issue to national attention.
First, the release of Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer opened a dialogue about the first atomic bomb and its long trajectory of suffering and death over the past 78 years. If the audience is “blown away” by the depiction of Trinity, think about the 928 nuclear bombs detonated in the Nevada desert. 100 of them were in the atmosphere, all more powerful than those that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I remind them of Trinity’s true legacy: the staggering number of ordinary people whose lives have been lost or shattered by the production and testing of nuclear weapons. I told them how the fallout from the nuclear test in Nevada spread across the United States, to New York, Canada, and beyond, and how the prevailing winds of the United States were blowing eastward. , told how they forced the move even though the government had warned them to carry the fallout with them. Regardless, the investigations conducted in Nevada under a campaign of secrecy, cover-up and lies have had devastating consequences for countless innocent innocent Americans downwind.
This month is, Research at Princeton University A map has been released that maps how radioactive fallout from Trinity and atmospheric tests in Nevada spread across the country. As shocking as it is, those of us who fell victim to it have known since then. 1997 National Cancer Institute study It shows that all counties in the continental United States have been affected to some degree by testing. The western part of the country was particularly hard hit.
I wondered how this silent poison was carried on the wind, how it traveled down the earth with the rain and snow, like the smoke of a distant wildfire that we could see and breathe. We know first hand how it rains down on the world and affects the food chain and ultimately in our bodies. I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer in my twenties as a result of my childhood exposure to the atomic bomb in Salt Lake City. I lost her sister to an autoimmune disease she had been battling for nine years. I have lost too many friends and loved ones and have heard heartbreaking stories of survivors in the West and elsewhere.
Our government, in a mad rush to win the Cold War, was willing to sacrifice us. It is time for Congress, and especially our delegation, to do the right thing and care for those who are knowingly being put at risk. We are the invisible victims of undeclared war. The program expires in June next year unless an expansion and extension to the RECA is passed.
Time is running out and downwind residents and uranium miners are dying by the day. This could be your last chance.
Mary Dixon She is an award-winning Salt Lake City author, downwinder, thyroid cancer survivor, and internationally known for her advocacy for survivors of nuclear weapons testing. She has spoken and written extensively on the human toll of the arms race, including twice at the World Forum on Nuclear Victims in Hiroshima. For the past three years, she has been part of a consortium of western downwind communities as well as national allies working to expand RECA.
