As Trinity test anniversary looms, downwinders grateful for big political win

Thousands of dollars could come to New Mexicans who grew sick after working in uranium mines or after above ground nuclear tests, but advocates say there is more work to be done and exactly how many New Mexicans could benefit is difficult to pin down.

“There’s no way for us to find (the number of downwinders), because our government has never, ever assessed the damage,” said Tina Cordova, founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium. But after gathering health surveys from New Mexico communities for years, Cordova expects tens of thousands of people could qualify as downwinders in the state.

Congress allowed the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA), a federal program to compensate people who grew sick from radiation exposure connected to nuclear weapons development, to expire last year after a fight to expand the program failed. But Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri got the extension and expansion included in the mega-budget bill signed by President Donald Trump last week.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates the expanded program will cost $7.7 billion. Estimates of last year’s broader expansion proposal were closer to $60 billion over 10 years.

Downwinders

The expansion includes the entire state of New Mexico as a downwind area for the first time and more uranium mine workers. It does not include Guam, Montana and Colorado, which were part of earlier expansion proposals. The program has been extended to 2028.

Since the original program began in 1990, RECA has paid out $2.7 billion to 42,579 claimants. The majority of those were downwinders.

“We are very grateful that there’s finally an acknowledgement and that there will finally be reparations paid, but the bill does not go far enough, and our fight is not over,” Cordova said.

Anyone who can prove they lived in New Mexico for one year from 1944 to 1962 and had one of the 19 radiologically connected cancers could be eligible under the expanded program, which offers $100,000 for downwinders. New Mexico has been included in the bill as downwind because of the 1945 Trinity Test, the first nuclear bomb explosion, and above-ground nuclear tests in Nevada.

Uranium miners

The exact number of living mine workers or deceased workers’ families who could benefit from the expanded RECA program is difficult to determine. But Loretta Anderson, with the Southwest Uranium Miners Coalition Post 71, works with more than 1,000 post-1971 uranium miners and their families.

“A lot of people think just because I worked at the mines, I’m eligible,” Anderson said. “You do have to qualify.”

Originally, only uranium mine workers from 1971 or earlier were eligible for compensation. Under the expanded program, workers from after 1971 are also eligible. There are seven qualifying illnesses for uranium mine drillers, haulers and millers.

Uranium mining was widespread across the Navajo Nation, with over 500 abandoned uranium mine sites on or near the Navajo Nation, according to an Environmental Protection Agency site. The majority of the 261 uranium mines in New Mexico were on or near tribal land in the northwest part of the state, but there were also mines as far south as Hidalgo County and as far east as Quay County.

An epidemiological study of uranium miners found at least 3,469 men who worked as uranium miners in New Mexico from 1956-1982. Those men worked an average of nine years in uranium mines, according to the 2021 study. Of those, 1,576 had died, with cancer leading as a cause of death, including 251 lung cancer deaths.

Zachary Davis, program specialist with a radiation exposure screening program at the University of New Mexico, has contact information for an estimated 250 post-1971 uranium mine workers who were interested in RECA but not eligible under the original program, Davis told the Journal in June.

Potential scams

Advocates and legislators are concerned that people who are newly eligible for RECA could be taken advantage of by scams promising help with filing claims. The Department of Justice administers the RECA program and is encouraging people to wait until new guidance is issued before filing claims.

Sen. Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., and Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, asked Attorney General Pam Bondi and Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer to implement new guidance quickly.

Although Luján has long advocated for the program, he voted against the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” of which it was a part.

“While the reauthorization and expansion of RECA is a welcome sight for the families and advocates who have stood up for the rights to justice, the bill it was included in threatens to do more harm than good,” Luján said, citing cuts to health and food aid.

Cordova does not expect any more efforts to expand the compensation program from this Congress. Instead, her organization will be focused on helping people apply for the program.

“Imagine how much money comes back to New Mexico if we get tens of thousands of people enrolled in the program,” Cordova said. “It’s not going to be millions of dollars. It’s going to be hundreds of millions of dollars. It is now incumbent upon us to make sure that we do everything we can to make sure we support this effort to get people enrolled.”