By Danielle Prokop and Julia Goldberg
The July 16th 80th anniversary of the Trinity Test arrived in New Mexico at a poignant moment, and serves as just one example of the state’s nuclear legacy. Generations of survivors of the federal government’s nuclear testing program and the state’s uranium mining industry have waited for years for recognition from the United States as they watched their friends and families die from cancers.
The 1990 federal Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) — created to provide restitution to people sickened by exposure to radiation — excluded New Mexico’s downwinders and post-1971 uranium miners, and expired in 2024, after years of lobbying for expansion by victims and New Mexico’s elected leaders. Over the years, the coalition calling for
RECA’s expansion and extension has grown across states and become a bipartisan effort. In the end, Republican U.S. Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri got it over the finish line as a provision in Trump’s massive tax and spending bill.
“It was quite a relief, because we’ve waited so long,” said Tina Cordova, founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, during a news conference. “Honestly, the acknowledgment is long past due,” she said. “But I also want to recognize…that we’re not there yet. We still have a lot of work to do.”
RECA’s two-year expansion “will not be long enough for us to get everybody enrolled,” Cordova said. The bill also provides $100,000 lump sum payouts but no longer includes health care coverage. “We will take the win, and we will continue our fight…. And we will also never forget that there are some very important people that have been left out: the people of Guam, the people of Colorado, the people of Montana, the remainder of Arizona and Nevada…. We will continue to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our sisters and brothers from those places who we’ve come to love.”
— For updates and info’ on applying for RECA go to trinitydownwinders.com. This article was originally published at Source New Mexico and has been shortened for space.
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