{"id":31589,"date":"2023-09-21T16:11:35","date_gmt":"2023-09-21T22:11:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/lawmakers-push-to-expand-radiation-bill-to-help-victims-of-the-cold-war\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T01:43:37","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T07:43:37","slug":"lawmakers-push-to-expand-radiation-bill-to-help-victims-of-the-cold-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/lawmakers-push-to-expand-radiation-bill-to-help-victims-of-the-cold-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawmakers push to expand radiation bill to help \u2018victims of the Cold War\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Tina
Tina Cordova holds up a picture of her niece, who has been diagnosed with cancer. Cordova says her niece represents the fifth generation in their family to develop cancer because of the nuclear weapon testing in New Mexico. (Office of Sen. Ben Ray Lujan)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

As the years have passed and people have died of cancer, Navajo Nation communities impacted by uranium mining have lost hope that they will someday receive compensation for the medical conditions resulting from exposure to radioactivity, Phil Harrison said during a news conference Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are here in Washington to tell America how freedom was established,\u201d said Harrison, a former miner and a member of the Navajo Uranium Radiation Victims Committee.<\/p>\n

People like Harrison and the downwinders, who were exposed to radiation from uranium mining and atomic bomb tests, moved closer to receiving compensation after the U.S. Senate approved an expansion to the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act earlier this year as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act.<\/p>\n

Reps. Teresa Leger Fern\u00e1ndez, a Democrat from New Mexico, and James Moylan, a Republican nonvoting member who represents Guam, are pushing for House approval of that expansion.<\/p>\n

\"Open
Open pit uranium mine in Grants, New Mexico, around 1968. The shovel gives an idea of scale. (Courtesy of U.S. Department of Energy, public domain)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cIf we could actually get out to all of the miners who mined after 1971 and make sure that they get the health screening \u2013 do you have any of these cancers that can be caused from this mining \u2013 we could save their lives,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

U.S. Sens. Ben Ray Luj\u00e1n, D-New Mexico, and Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, hosted a news conference Wednesday and were joined by Leger Fern\u00e1ndez, Moylan and Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Missouri, and people from communities impacted by the radiation exposure.<\/p>\n

Many of the people who attended, including Harrison, wore yellow shirts that read: \u201cWe are the unknowing, unwilling, uncompensated victims of the Cold War.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harrison said the miners were largely uneducated and couldn\u2019t read and write.<\/p>\n

His father, who worked in the mines, died at age 43 of lung cancer and now Harrison has kidney problems because of the exposure to radioactive material. Hundreds of Navajo people who worked in the mines have died because of that exposure.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople die very quietly,\u201d Harrison said.<\/p>\n

In the past two months, he has facilitated three funerals from deaths that were related to cancer and lung disease.<\/p>\n

\"Near
Near a reclaimed pit mine in Oljato, Utah, on the Navajo Reservation, chunks of uranium lay scattered among the debris. Los Angeles Times via Getty Images<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cThe Navajo uranium miners, all those other miners, the Laguna miners, they provided that recipe for the bomb,\u201d Harrison said.<\/p>\n

When his kidneys failed, Harrison initially thought he had been bitten by mosquitoes. A rash formed on his body and the doctors put him on dialysis. Looking back, he recalls drinking water in the uranium mine.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody told me, \u2018Don\u2019t drink that. Don\u2019t wade in there,\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Navajo Nation Speaker Crystalyne Curley spoke about the debt that the country owes to the Navajo people for the decades of uranium mining and the impacts on their health and environment.<\/p>\n

Between 1944 and 1986, companies extracted nearly 300 million tons of uranium from the Navajo Nation. This provided jobs for families, but Curley said her people were not informed about the dangers of uranium mining, evidenced by \u201cgenerations of illnesses and death across Navajo Nation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Navajo community members herded livestock to drink contaminated waters, which children also played in. She said they also took lumber and supplies available from the mines to construct their houses.<\/p>\n

Now they are paying the cost in medical conditions such as cancer and kidney disease.<\/p>\n

After learning about the radioactive waste that was disposed of in Missouri and uranium processing that occurred in the St. Louis area that continues to impact people\u2019s health, Hawley called Luj\u00e1n \u2013 who has been a longtime champion of expanding RECA \u2013 and the two of them worked together in a bipartisan effort to get 61 votes in the Senate.<\/p>\n

\"A
A warning sign at the old Kerr-McGee uranium mill site is shown on open land in the foreground with Mount Taylor in the background near Grants, N.M. Susan Montoya Bryan\/The Associated Press<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cListen, this is a basic principle, if a government is going to create a disaster, the government should clean it up,\u201d Hawley said. \u201cIf the government is going to expose its own citizens to radioactive material, radioactive waste, radioactive contamination for decades, the government ought to pay the bills of the men and women who have gotten sick because of it, they ought to pay for the survivor benefits of those who have been lost.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Missouri, radioactive waste led to the closure of Jana Elementary School and a community member who attended the news conference held a sign that read \u201cJustice for Jana Elementary.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since the closure, more than 300 truck loads of contaminated dirt have been removed from the banks of Coldwater Creek near the school, and the community has called for broader levels of testing.<\/p>\n

\"Navajo
Navajo miners work at the Kerr McGee uranium mine at Cove, Arizona, on the Navajo Reservation in this photo from the 1950s. The Associated Press<\/span>Associated Press file photo<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

This story is not unique, and Hawley said he was able to secure the votes of his Republican colleagues by telling them about ways the expansion could benefit their own constituents.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery member of Congress should vote for this,\u201d Hawley said, stating that all 50 states have people who have been impacted by radiation exposure.<\/p>\n

In his own state, Hawley pointed to the high levels of childhood brain tumors in St. Louis as a result of the uranium processing.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, we\u2019ve been told for decades that that was just a coincidence. But we know now that\u2019s not true,\u201d he said, adding that federal officials knew that the water and soil in St. Louis had nuclear contamination starting as early as the 1950s and 1960s.<\/p>\n

Luj\u00e1n spoke about the conditions that uranium miners faced as the mines were often filled with water to keep particulate matter down and the workers would leave with radioactive material on their clothing, which they would bring home to their families.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot only were those uranium mine workers getting sick, but then it was spreading to families and countless others,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The vast majority of the defense-related uranium mining \u2013 96% \u2013 occurred on Navajo Nation lands. Other uranium mining related to defense activities occurred on Pueblo of Laguna and Pueblo of Zuni lands in New Mexico.<\/p>\n

Downwinders in the Tularosa Basin who have not been compensated for the health impacts atomic weapon testing had on their families. That includes people like Tina Cordova, who is the fourth generation in her family to develop cancer as a result of the testing and now has a niece who is fifth generation to develop cancer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are generations behind us whose genes carry this legacy,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Cordova said there was no running water in her community at the time, so people collected rainwater for drinking, cooking and bathing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey didn\u2019t have the decency to let us know that as that ash fell from the sky for days afterward that it would completely contaminate our water supply,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

There were also no grocery stores, so many people grew their own food, which was also contaminated by the fallout.<\/p>\n

Both Luj\u00e1n and Leger Fern\u00e1ndez spoke about the recent film \u201cOppenheimer,\u201d which documented the work to develop the atomic bomb.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn New Mexico, the bomb was invented, the bomb was exploded, and the material for the bomb was mined,\u201d Leger Fern\u00e1ndez said.<\/p>\n

She said the government eventually chose to move that testing to Guam and other Pacific islands. The original law did not include downwinders in New Mexico or Guam, nor did it include miners who worked in uranium mines after 1971.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a marvelous thing they did in 1992, where they recognized that the downwinders, the miners, the workers deserve the kind of specialized health care that they need to address the harm that is done when you are exposed to these materials,\u201d Leger Fern\u00e1ndez said, referencing the initial passage of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act. \u201cWhat was wrong back then was to inadvertently leave out the communities that are represented here behind me from that compensation.\u201d<\/p>\n

This story<\/a> was written by Hannah Grover and has been republished here from NM Political Report.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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