People from New Mexico, who were victims of the world's first nuclear weapon test conducted on July 16, 1945, will now receive compensation.
When the U.S. military detonated the world’s first nuclear weapon near New Mexico ’s Jornada del Muerto desert in 1945, people living in the nearby areas were exposed to harmful radiation. Weeks later, the radioactive dust started coating roofs, clotheslines, crops, and animals, making neighbors sick with cancer.
People of New Mexico who were victims of the Manhattan Project’s Trinity Test, conducted on July 16, 1945, never received the desired compensation. Even nearby people were neither evacuated nor warned before the nuclear test.Now, eight decades after the test, a measure in the recently enacted Republican tax bill is expected to help victims who experienced health issues linked to radiation emanating from the atomic test.New Mexico victims eligible for compensationFirst passed in 1990, the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act initially didn’t include those who were potentially impacted by the Trinity Test in New Mexico, or living on Navajo lands in Arizona, among other areas. But recent revisions in RECA make New Mexico fallout victims and the miners who dug up the uranium to fuel the weapon eligible for compensation.Congress on July 3 reauthorized claims under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act and extended the RECA Trust Fund. In addition, the reauthorization expands the criteria for eligibility under RECA.Trump signed the billTrump signed the bill 12 days before the 80th anniversary of the top-secret Manhattan Project’s culmination, when J. Robert Oppenheimer and his fractious band of scientists and engineers at 5:29 a.m. — in what was then called “Mountain War Time” — set off the first detonation of a nuclear weapons test in New Mexico’s Jornada del Muerto desert on July 16, 1945, reported Military.com.“The people of New Mexico have now been added to the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act. While this is great news, please be warned. The Department of Justice is not ready to process claims yet,” said Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium in a statement.“There are many companies and attorneys from across the country that will be glad to help you with a claim, but you will be required by them to pay a fee and give up part of your claim. There is no need to do that. We will soon have people in place to help file claims.”The consortium was started in 2005 by Tina Cordova to help Trinity test victims.The United States conducted nearly 200 atmospheric nuclear weapons development tests from 1945 to 1962. Essential to the nation’s nuclear weapons development was uranium mining and processing, which was carried out by tens of thousands of workers.Following the conclusion of these activities, lawsuits against the United States alleged failure to warn of exposures to known radiation hazards. These suits were dismissed by the appellate courts. Congress responded by devising a program allowing partial restitution to individuals who developed serious illnesses after presumed exposure to radiation released during the atmospheric nuclear tests or after employment in the uranium industry. Under RECA, there are five categories of claimants: uranium miners, uranium millers, ore transporters, downwinders, and onsite nuclear-test participants. ’80 years worth of illness and death in New Mexico’Bernice Gutierrez, a downwinder who was born in Carrizozo, New Mexico, eight days before the Trinity Test, believes money from the program could be an “economic boom” for communities that have long suffered from radiation-related health impacts, reported USA Today. “Can you imagine 80 years worth of illness and death in New Mexico?” And we have a two-year time frame in which to gather all these applications?” said Gutierrez, who has more than 40 family members who’ve experienced what they believe to be radiation-related sicknesses.
Manhattan Project New Mexico Nuclear Fallout Nuclear Radiation Nuclear Test Victims Nuclear Weapon Oppenheimer Radiation Exposure Compensation Act RECA Trinity Test Uranium Miners
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