OPINION: New Mexico Downwinders are now able to apply for and receive compensation

The Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium (TBDC) is a 21-year-old organization that was founded to bring attention to the negative health effects suffered by the people of New Mexico as a result of being overexposed to radiation from the Trinity bomb detonated on July 16, 1945. When the late Fred Tyler and I decided to undertake this work, we had no idea what we would uncover. We knew what we were seeing in our community, but we had no idea that people from all across the country and the Pacific Islands had been overexposed to radiation just like us and had simply become the collateral damage of our government’s quest for nuclear superiority. We didn’t know that billions of dollars had been paid to victims from other places while we were left out. And we had no idea that it would take 20 years to finally succeed in getting the government to acknowledge the damage they did to us and to compensate us for the damage.

We also learned that the people of New Mexico were exposed from the 93 above-ground devices that were detonated in the Nevada desert. When the Nevada tests were conducted, the U.S. government placed monitoring stations across the American West to detect and record the radiation deposition from the detonations. The monitoring stations in New Mexico regularly recorded deposition of radioactive fallout all across New Mexico from the Nevada tests that ended in 1962. Sebastien Philippe, a nuclear engineering professor at the University of Wisconsin, has created maps that further inform what is known today about the nuclear fallout from Trinity and the tests in Nevada. This mapping earned him the 2025 MacArthur Fellowship Award.

In 2025, Congress finally acted to amend the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) to include the people of New Mexico. This effort was kept alive by all five members of Congress from New Mexico.

If you lived in any part of New Mexico for one year between 1944 and 1962, you’re eligible as long as you had one of the 19 compensable cancers. You can also apply on behalf of a deceased spouse, child, parent or grandparent. For more information about the program and which cancers are compensable, please go to the TBDC website at www.trinitydownwinders.com.

The RECA program is administered by the U.S. Department of Justice. They’re only receiving mail-in claims at this time. We’re glad to report that many people have had their claims approved and paid and have received their one-time payment of $100,000. 

If people need help with the application process, the TBDC can serve as a conduit to volunteers who’ve come forward from all parts of the state. We should all be cooperating in this process and making it as easy as possible for people to access their medical records, birth and death certificates, school records, court records, etc.

Be aware that “bad actors” have infiltrated our state, promising claimants all sorts of things they cannot deliver. By law, these organizations are allowed to take as much as 10% of the claim money. The claimant remains responsible for all the legwork in gathering documentation while these organizations do very little. The TBDC is not associated with or supporting any of these out-of-state organizations.

We encourage people from all parts of New Mexico to please apply. Recently, we learned that the DOJ believes there could be as many as 50,000 claimants in New Mexico. That would amount to $5 billion in payments to the people of New Mexico. Imagine how that could be life-changing for people who’ve suffered and sacrificed for over 80 years without assistance.

Our fight for more through the RECA program will continue.

Tina Cordova is the co-founder of the Tularosa Downwinders Consortium.