Latest news with #TularosaBasinDownwindersConsortium
Axios
10-07-2025
- Health
- Axios
Trinity Test-area residents to finally get reparations 80 years later
New Mexicans impacted by the Trinity Test are getting closer to receiving compensation after eight decades of health problems and rare cancers stemming from the world's first atomic explosion. The big picture: President Trump's recently signed the "big, beautiful bill," which includes an extension of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) and, for the first time, covers victims of the Trinity Test. The inclusion comes after the victims fought for acknowledgement and reparations over multiple generations. It also comes before the 80th anniversary of the Trinity Test, which is next week. Zoom in: Under the extension and inclusion, Trinity victims can apply for $100,000 for damages caused by the 1945 bomb test that helped end World War II. RECA, which awarded financial reparations to people who lived downwind of the Nevada Test Site, ended last year but has now been renewed for two years thanks to pressure from Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) The law was originally passed in 1990, but Hispanic residents and Mescalero Apache tribal members, who were next to the 1945 Trinity Test, were never included. Descendants have suffered from rare cancers for generations. Yes, but: The recently passed legislation gutting Medicaid covers many residents in New Mexico, including Trinity victims. The RECA expansion also does not include eligibility for people near Nuclear testing in the U.S. territory of Guam, parts of Arizona, Montana, Colorado and new parts of Nevada. What they're saying: "The two-year extension will not be long enough for us to get everybody enrolled that should be enrolled, and the health care coverage was stripped out," Tina Cordova, co-founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, said on a call with reporters Thursday. Cordova said she was still grateful and relieved New Mexicans were finally added and that her group will continue to fight for Medicaid restorations. Luján said he's hopeful that his Republican colleagues in the Senate will work with him to reserve some of the Medicaid cuts. "I want to recognize the leadership of Sen. Hawley when we had a chance to begin working on this over the last couple of years." Context: On July 16, 1945, in the New Mexico desert, the U.S. Army detonated an atomic bomb developed at the then-secret community of Los Alamos as part of the World War II-era Manhattan Project. The bomb exploded at 5:29am, and its thunderous roar knocked people from breakfast tables in the historic Hispanic village of Tularosa and sent Mescalero Apache Reservation residents into hiding. Following the test in the Jornada del Muerto desert near Alamogordo, residents often picnicked at the site and took artifacts, including the radioactive green glass known as "trinitite." Residents only learned about the Trinity Test after the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. The bomb's aftermath later caused rare forms of cancer for many of the 30,000 people and their descendants in the area surrounding Trinity. Poor Hispanic residents and Mescalero Apache tribal members held bake sales to pay for cancer treatments. The intrigue: Downwinders received renewed public interest in 2023 following the release of the blockbuster "Oppenheimer," directed by Christopher Nolan. The movie follows American scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer as his team races to create the atomic bomb, but it overlooks the aftermath on the people of New Mexico. What we're watching: The U.S. Justice Department is advising the public to wait "for further guidance" before filing a claim, noting on its website that the bill was only recently signed into law.
Yahoo
08-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
New Mexico downwinders now eligible for compensation from RECA
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – For decades, downwinders in New Mexico have fought to get compensation from the federal government for health impacts from nuclear test sites and other facilities. Now, a law that's been on the books for years lists New Mexico as one of the new states eligible for compensation. 'We know that this is a crack in the dam,' said Tina Cordova, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium. It's been a long-awaited move; the federal government is extending a hand of assistance to downwinders of nuclear sites in New Mexico. 'This is the 80th year since the bomb was detonated at Trinity, so the people of New Mexico have essentially been waiting 80 years for this acknowledgment and this assistance,' Cordova said. New Mexico Democrats call on Congress to reinstate Radiation Exposure Compensation Act Though people are excited about the win, some are torn on how it came about. Inside President Trump's 'Big, Beautiful Bill' is a provision that expands who is eligible for the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, or RECA for short, and extends it until the end of 2028. 'We have a lot of work to do,' Cordova explained. 'We know the time frame they've gave us is limited, and we know our fight in Congress is not over.' It's the largest expansion of the act to date and is the first time New Mexico has ever made the list. It also increases the compensation amount up to $100,000. The provision covers leukemia claims related to the Trinity test in New Mexico. Uranium miners who worked from 1942 and 1990 are also covered. If a family member has already passed, the family can apply on their behalf. Indigenous group heads to DC to fight for radiation compensation 'There is no amount of money that will ever, ever make up for our losses,' Cordova said. Though the win is a rallying cry for advocates, downwinders are concerned about the Medicare and Medicaid cuts from the 'Big, Beautiful Bill.' Health surveys conducted among people affected near nuclear test sites show that a good portion are on one of the two health care plans, but could now lose them. 'We'll take the win,' Cordova added. 'We will not stop working on this, though. There's more to come.' The expansion also included Utah, Idaho, and northern Arizona. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
10-06-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
New Mexico delegation, radiation victims renew call for compensation
Tina Cordova, a founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, protests at the Trinity site on Oct. 21, 2023. (Danielle Prokop) In the one year since the federal Radiation Exposure Compensation Act expired, New Mexico survivors of federal nuclear testing programs said they have continued to watch family members and friends die. The RECA legislation, passed in 1990, compensated people who developed cancers or other illnesses as a result of radiation exposure from the United States' atomic programs. New Mexico's Trinity test downwinders and uranium miners who worked in the industry after RECA's coverage period (post-1971) have been notably excluded. New Mexico's congressional delegation have made numerous attempts to expand and extend the bill, with the U.S. Senate passing the bill to do so twice last year. But the bill never made it to the U.S. House floor for a vote, and expired on June 10, 2024. Time's run out for the Radiation Exposure and Compensation Act Tina Cordova, co-founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, which includes victims and descendants downwind from the 1945 Trinity Test, told attendees during a Tuesday news conference marking the RECA-expiration anniversary, two of her cousins have died in the last year, one 'after battling brain cancer for many, many years.' Her youngest brother, Cordova noted, also had also been diagnosed with kidney cancer and is fighting the disease alongside his daughter, who also has cancer. 'My family has five generations of cancer now,' said Cordova, herself a cancer survivor, whose battle for justice serves as the centerpiece for Lois Lipman's award-winning documentary First We Bombed New Mexico. 'My family is not unique. We've documented thousands of families like mine exhibiting four and five generations of cancer. That's the face of the legacy that we've been left to deal with.' Loretta Anderson (Pueblo of Laguna), a patient advocate and co- founder of the Southwest Uranium Miners Coalition Post-71, said she works with 1,000 uranium miners and their families and, in the year since RECA expired, counts 10 who have died. 'They died with no compensation, no apology from the government, and many of them were part of our coalition,' Anderson said. 'We mourn, we hurt, we cry, we suffer. Many of our people are sick. Our young are now being diagnosed with cancer and other horrific diseases. We're losing our young. We're losing our future.' We're losing our young. We're losing our future. – Loretta Anderson, Pueblo of Laguna and Southwest Uranium Miners Coalition Post-71 Congress 'is responsible for those deaths,' Democratic U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, who represents the state's 3rd Congressional District, said during the call, in which she exhorted her Republican colleagues in the U.S. House 'to stand up for their constituents. 'Congress has failed its moral obligation…Speaker [Mike] Johnson needs to let us vote.' Nuclear survivors have lobbied for decades for inclusion in RECA. The current push comes amid the Trump administration's push for renewed uranium mining in New Mexico and elsewhere, which both Cordova and Anderson oppose. 'Our government has not cleaned up the mess they made in the beginning,' Cordova said. 'They have not done anything to address the first round of uranium mining. And as it relates to downwinders, this is the 80th anniversary since Trinity. We have no faith in the government coming back to take care of the mess they made, and they want us to support new mining? Personally, we cannot do that.' Long-stalled NM uranium mines now 'priority projects' at Cibola Forest, leader tells employees Anderson noted that she lives 11 miles from the former Jackpile-Paguate uranium mine, now a Superfund site. 'And so, we're going to fight,' any new mines, she said. 'We need to compensate, take care of the lands that they destroyed…before any mining is done, because people are sick, people are suffering… I know many of our people here on the reservations and surrounding communities do not support uranium mining here ever again.' U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) noted that the Trump administration's push for more uranium mining should serve as yet another reason to support RECA. 'The fundamental issue here is like,' let's own up to what we did as a as a government,'' Heinrich said. 'That's just the right and moral thing to do…you can't expect communities to embrace new mining if you haven't fixed the problems that you created 50, 60 years ago.' As for reintroducing RECA and pushing it through Congress, Leger Fernández said she has spoken directly with Johnson, whose concerns, she said, had more to do with the cost than the concept of compensation. Cordova noted that if survivors could sue the federal government in civil court, they'd likely receive millions in dollars in settlements — far more than is expected in the event that RECA passes. That being said, 'there is no amount of money that anyone could ever pay me for the pain and suffering that my family has seen…and there is absolutely no way that the government could ever make my family whole again,' she said. U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), who has sponsored RECA legislation every year since he entered Congress in 2008, and most recently co-sponsored the RECA expansion bill with GOP Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri. Luján noted the irony of Republicans worrying about the cost of RECA, given that Republicans in the U.S. House are 'about to pass a bill for a third time that's going to add over $2 trillion to the debt.' Nonetheless, Luján noted, ultimately RECA is a 'bipartisan issue and it has a bipartisan solution — I would argue bipartisan solutions. Alongside our congressional delegation, I commit to continue to work with our bipartisan coalition to keep RECA moving forward.' And to the victims 'still living and suffering…I'll never stop fighting for your stories to be heard and for justice to be delivered.'
