|
20 Radioactive Dangers We All Face |
|
|
|
|
In October 1990, Congress passed the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (42 U.S.C. 2210), which provides payments to individuals who contracted certain cancers and other serious diseases as a result of their exposure to radiation released during above-ground nuclear weapons tests or as a result of their exposure to radiation during employment at atomic testing sites or in underground uranium mines. The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act now allows downwinder victims in 21 counties in southern Utah, eastern Nevada and northern Arizona who suffer from any of 19 different cancers to receive up to $50,000. Uranium miners, ore transporters and workers who participated in above-ground nuclear weapons tests became eligible for inclusion in the program - and higher payouts - following a 2000 amendment to RECA. The amended RECA also added the following allowable cancers: lung, brain, ovary, urinary bladder, and salivary gland; and male breast cancer. (Learn about all eligible diseases at the DOJ's RECA site). The RECA Trust Fund is scheduled to terminate in 2022 pursuant to a sunset provision in the legislation. As of April 21, 2010, the Fund had authorized payments totaling $1.492 billion for 22,395 approved claims since the program began processing them in April 1992. Almost half the $1.492 billion was paid to claimants ('downwinders') who lived downwind of the Nevada Test Site. The 22,395 claims represent 70% of the 31,862 RECA claims filed since 1992. The remaining 30% were denied because RECA's eligibility criteria were not satisfied. (Weekly updates on these numbers here) The Radiation Exposure Compensation Program (RECP), put into place in 1992 to process RECA claims, is administered by the Department of Justice, which paradoxically is the very entity that has actually fought downwinders in court from the 1950s through the present over matters of justice and compensation (and Divine Strake!). Jump to Legislative efforts Read a great chronological narrative of RECA by Utah native Tori Ballif below: Beyond Compensation: Inadequacies of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) Tori Ballif (Mary Dickson) Department of History, University of Utah, 2008 "We
scientists recognize our inescapable
responsibility to carry to our
fellow citizens an understanding of
the simple facts of atomic energy
and its implications for society. In
this lies our only security and our
only hope - we believe that an
informed citizenry will act for life
and not death." At 5:44.30 A.M. on January 27th, 1951, a B-50 bomber flying over the Nevada desert dropped an atomic bomb code-named "Able," releasing a nuclear cloud that traveled along wind currents up through Colorado and over Kansas and Missouri before mixing with a snowstorm in Rochester, New York.(1) Born out of America's Cold War defense mentality, "Able" marked the beginning of four decades of testing at the Nevada Proving Site, where more than 900 atmospheric and underground nuclear tests were conducted by the Atomic Energy Commission, and later by the Department of Energy. Countless people and animals were exposed to high levels of radiation. Immediately following detonations, US soldiers were routinely marched within miles of ground zero. Uranium miners and test site workers handled dangerously hot radioactive materials with little or no protective equipment. Throughout the United States, people living downwind of the testing were exposed to radioactive fallout from the dust they swept, the fresh vegetables they ate, the milk they drank, even the air they breathed. This contact with nuclear fallout resulted in high rates of cancer, birth defects, sterility, and other radiation-induced illnesses among exposed populations. My grandmother was a downwinder. Her death in 2004 followed two battles with fallout-induced cancer that left her with degenerative brain disorder and esophageal stricture. This galvanized me to explore the radiation exposure she experienced. I chose to research the history of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act because it is the most salient issue facing Downwinders today. Whereas previous writing considered RECA as a part of America's nuclear history, I felt by focusing on the history of the legislation itself, I could better understand RECA's inadequacies and identify ways to change the compensation system in the future. This investigative study examined the background, creation, and current developments of RECA, paying particular attention to the role local and national politics play in the issue of nuclear testing. During the initial years of the nuclear testing, the Atomic Energy Commission was effective in controlling information surrounding America's testing program, assuring people living near the Nevada Test Site that they were not in any real danger, though some had been "inconvenienced by [the AEC's] test operations."(2) As death and illness grew more frequent among exposed populations, these American citizens began to realize exactly what kind of "inconvenience" they were facing. Fallout victims began to fight back - utilizing new studies linking radiation exposure and illness and the 1979 declassification of AEC documents to bring law suits against the Atomic Energy Commission. In the 1984 landmark Allen decision, Judge Bruce S. Jenkins awarded $2.66 million to two living claimants and the survivors of eight decedents.(3) Though this decision was later overturned by the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals on the claim that the federal government possessed discretionary powers to pursue federal programs regardless of injury, Jenkins' decision lent momentum to the Downwinders' cause. During roughly this same period, Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) was pushing Congress for a compensation bill. An earlier compensation proposal presumed government responsibility, making damage awards the only issue a lawsuit would determine. Instead of assuming government fault, however, Hatch's legislation placed the burden of proof on the victims to show that their medical conditions were caused by test site radiation.(4) The politics behind the issue went deeper, as even Hatch's limited legislation was met with opposition from the Reagan Administration, concerned about the financial repercussions of compensation and the potential opposition of the nuclear industry. In 1990, Senator Hatch finally saw the passage of his Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA). Though this legislation was seen as a political victory for Hatch, it left exposed populations with little to celebrate. RECA allotted compensation to individuals living or working "downwind" of the test site, workers involved in the atmospheric weapons tests, and uranium miners, but claimants had to provide proof of exposure and duration, establish medical condition, and - more significantly - were limited to certain geographical areas. Though amended in 2000, the current Radiation Exposure Compensation Act extends only to persons able to adequately prove, through documentation: a.) that they lived in one of 22 approved counties in Southern Utah, Nevada, or Northern Arizona, b.) that they lived in those counties for at least 24 months between January 21, 1951 and October 31, 1958 OR the entire period from June 30, 1962 to July 31, 1962, and c.) that they were diagnosed with one of the 21 approved types of primary cancer.(5) This legislation becomes problematic on many levels; RECA assumes the ability to geographically limit nuclear fallout, though the 1997 National Cancer Institute study revealed that Northern Utah received as much or more radiation exposure as Southern Utah. In fact, studies have shown that every county in the United States received some level of exposure to radioactive iodine 131. Furthermore, RECA disadvantages Native Americans, children, and others who might not have access to the extensive paperwork needed to prove residence or employment in an exposed area. Additionally, RECA does not include all of the cancers nor any of the autoimmune diseases caused by fallout exposure. These inadequacies have led to renewed public pressure to expand RECA, yet political resistance continues to be a problem for Downwinders. Despite public hearings in St. George and Salt Lake City beginning in 2003, and the unanimous urging by the Utah State Legislature in 2005 to expand RECA, Congress remained silent on the issue until last year when Idaho and Montana senators teamed up to sponsor an amendment to expand RECA to include their respective states. Though numerous fallout studies have shown current RECA geographical boundaries to be completely arbitrary, Utah Senators Hatch and Bennett have refused to join this bill to extend compensation to Northern Utah. In a January 25th, 2008 letter, Senator Hatch explained that he is waiting for "additional studies and research" and will not support expansion at this time.(6) Ultimately, the history of RECA is about a power struggle between the American people and their government. My research found two main sources of power: control of information and control of the political process. Traditionally, the government has dominated these areas, yet the public's recent success in stopping Divine Strake - a high-explosive non-nuclear test originally scheduled for June 2, 2006 at the Nevada Site - suggests that US citizens are not without the means to empower themselves. The key to change lies in cultivating public awareness and fostering active participation in the political process. By providing a chronological narrative of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, I hope to expose the government's continued reticence to accept responsibility for its actions, whether in 1958 or 2008, effectively sacrificing the health and security of its people to pursue its own agenda. Atomic victims have been silenced by a military industrial complex and manipulated by local politicians. I believe that continued research on RECA will ignite awareness among a new generation and ensure that this issue no longer be ignored. In the end, the push to expand RECA is not about money. Monetary compensation does not bring back loved ones nor restore health. It is about the government accepting responsibility for its actions, ensuring that this kind of tragedy never happens again. It is about putting people before politics and returning dignity to those who were robbed of it. 1. Richard L. Miller, Under the Cloud: The Decades of Nuclear Testing (London: Collier Macmillan Publishers, 1986), 88-91. 2. AEC Report, Atomic Test Effects, 1955, p. 1. 3. Howard Ball, Justice Downwind: America's Atomic Testing Program in the 1950's (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 160-161. 4. 'Ibid, 188. 5. U.S. Department of Justice. http://www.usdoj.gov/civil/torts/const/reca/2claimJorms/Downwinder.pdf 13 April 2007. 6. Senator Orrin Hatch, Letter to Mary Dickson, January 25th, 2008.
|
Table
of contents (links)
National Academy of Sciences review
New Mexico and Trinity fallout
Action Step: igniting the downwinder movement
A Nation Downwind Needs A Nationwide Compensation System
Compare the two maps below. The blue areas on the left map below depict where fallout-victims of the U.S. government's nuclear testing program in the 1950s and 1960s may receive, if they qualify, a one-time monetary settlement under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA). RECA provides 'compassionate payments' of $50,000 to persons whose illnesses may have been caused by Nevada atomic fallout. Parts of Nevada, Utah and Arizona are covered in the program but only persons who meet a short list of suspected fallout-linked cancers or diseases and who have lived in designated counties between 1951 and 1958 or from June 30, 1962, to July 31, 1962 are eligible.
Now look at the map on the right. That shows areas in the continental U.S. where fallout traveled (over land, crops, animals, people, water supplies, etc...) from atmospheric nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site.
Bigger version of RECA map; more maps
Why are only the blue areas covered by RECA? Why isn't Idaho, Montana, northern Utah, or the rest of the continental United States covered by RECA?
Why are the blue areas only recognized as poisoned areas when the fallout map shows that nearly all areas nationwide were poisoned? (Read more about the fallout map by Richard Miller here. The fallout map doesn't include the radioactive releases from the three decades of underground testing that ended only in 1992.)
The simplest answer is that the lack of rigor in U.S. governmental health studies into fallout has resulted in a severe low-balling of the estimates of cancers and deaths - and their geography - attributable to nuclear testing. Scores of people in Idaho, Montana, northern Utah, southern Mohave County (Arizona; more), in the Pacific, and elsewhere, believe that their illnesses, and deaths of their kin, are linked to testing fallout. But they can't prove it. Nor receive compensation.
National Academy of Sciences review
In 2002, the National Academy of Sciences, via the National Research Committee to Assess the Scientific Information for the Radiation Exposure Screening and Education Program, began an investigation to assess recent scientific evidence to determine whether the RECA program should be expanded to include additional geographic areas, other types of cancers and other “classes of individuals." The NAS's Board on Radiation Effects Research (BRER) panel heard testimony from afflicted persons in St. George, Utah in December 2003, Window Rock, Ariz., in May 2004, and Salt Lake City in July 2004. The NAS committee planned the hearing at the Navajo Nation (in Arizona) after Native Americans showed up en masse at the St. George hearing. Also, a last minute public meeting was held in Boise, Idaho, on November 6, 2004 but only three NAS staffers attended. After reviewing scientific literature, compiling evidence on cancer rates and assessing the levels of radioactivity that fell in various areas, the NAS released their final report - as a recommendation to Congress - in April 2005.
The NAS St. George
hearing (12/15/2003):  Watch
the recorded video or listen to the audio (also for podcasting)
of the hearings using the links below:
|
In a nutshell (read our full critique of the NAS review), the NAS concluded radioactive fallout - except for Iodine-131 exposure - was more or less the same as exposure to natural background radiation. Except for I-131, all of the plutonium and strontium and cesium, they argue, in our water and food and air supplies are not a substantial contributing cause to cancer. The NAS argued that RECA expansion would "result in few successful claims" for compensation and it'd be unlikely that even persons who got thyroid cancer from Iodine-131 exposure would qualify: "...it is unlikely that a very large number of individuals with cancer, even thyroid cancer, would be newly eligible for compensation. " The NAS also felt that even persons currently eligible for compensation had a 'generally low' risk of radiation induced diseases.
So, the NAS report, if fully acted upon by Congress, would expand RECA to many more states, but basically no one, not even the persons who are eligible under the present version of RECA, would qualify.
How did the NAS make such a conclusion? Well, they used the scientific evidence available, which amounted to horse-crap. That data comprised governmental monitoring and health studies information on fallout that for decades have been sabotaged, stonewalled, defunded, and defanged by U.S. government health and environmental agencies.
Yes, in a word (or two), the issue of fallout from U.S. nuclear testing has been subjected to a huge coverup. Let's start at the beginning. In the 1950s, the environmental sampling of above-ground Nevada testing fallout was collected at just 40 to 95 monitoring locations in the United States that all used a gummed-film medium that had a collection efficiency of as low as 10%. The only major U.S. health study into exposure to fallout concentrated on just Iodine-131, yet Iodine-131 was one of hundreds of fallout isotopes from Nevada testing fallout - the rest were never studied. That study relied exclusively on this shoddy gummed-film data. The findings from that health study report were held from the public for about eight years - the results were known in 1989, but the public didn't find out until 1997 - over fears of public alarm. The Iodine-131 study - which was leaked, not released, to the public in 1997 - used that shitty gummed-film data and, with the aid of 'meteorological-enhancements,' 'calculated' fallout deposition in each and every one of 3,000 counties in the U.S.! Yes, data from 40-95 monitoring stations, each with a failing-grade collection efficiency, were used to deduce what 1950s and 1960s Nevada fallout fell in 3,000 U.S. counties! The Iodine-131 study researchers never bothered to calculate the amount of other radioisotopes (i.e., Cesium-137, Strontium-90) that fell when they were running their super-statistical computer program. All they needed was to get a copy of the Hicks Tables and add a few extra columns in their spreadsheet.
But
they didn't. They also didn't even think - or dare to think- of
collecting REAL data: soil samples from those 3,000 counties, which
still contain detectable levels of fallout from the 1950s and
1960s. Yes, fallout hasn't fully decayed in your
communities. Plutonium never will in your lifetime. Neither
will Cesium-137. Neither will Strontium-90. Why not
presently test the soils in thousands of locations in the U.S., and
calculate, using half-life formulas of fallout radioisotopes, what fell
where and in what quantities? They won't for the
following reason: the
government doesn't want to know. And our government doesn't want
to know because THEY DON'T WAN'T YOU TO KNOW. They don't want you
to know, partly, because it would cost tens or hundreds of trillions of
dollars to compensate poisoned Americans in dozens of states if we all
found out the truth.
So, don't believe a word about assurances that fallout from Nevada was "the
same magnitude or less than natural background radiation." It
is a lie. Same for the lies surrounding most if not all of the other incidences of
radiological poisoning during the oft-presumed casualty-less Cold War. In the
book The Great American Bomb Machine author Roger Rapoport
writes:
"Who, studying of deceit, lying, coverups, censorships, reprisals and intimidation could trust these bomb men? The fires, explosions, criticality accidents, contamination incidents, fallout catastrophes, underground test ventings, minor fatalities, indoor radon seepage...were not the work of some sinister enemy, but our own government, which professes to protect us."
Read about Gummed film data
Read about the Nevada Test Site
Read about the Iodine-131 study
RECA legislative effort
The NAS's report was just a recommendation. Congress has the authority to do what it pleases, such as raising an 'arbitrary' threshold to include more numbers of eligible persons even if science, in the view of the NAS, doesn't merit that. When Congress expanded RECA in 2000 to add counties and more types of cancer, it did it out of 'legal presumption' that diseases were caused by testing in those locations at certain times and also out of compassion for those who suffered. Although the NAS rejected these 'standards' of compassion and 'legal presumption,' Idaho's congressional delegation decided to apply them anyway following NAS's report. They unsuccessfully tried an "interim step" to write Idaho in the RECA boundaries while Congress considers NAS's recommendations (although Congress hasn't acted on the NAS report since its release in 2005).
Hearings
In 2007, Representatives Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) and Jim Matheson (D-Utah) called on the House Judiciary Committee to hold oversight hearings on broadening RECA but with no success. Jim Matheson and Mike Simpson, joined by Walt Minnick (D-Idaho), again called on the House Judiciary Committee in their February 2009 letter to hold hearings with no success..
A bill to add Guam to RECA, HR 1630, was introduced by Delegate Madeleine Bordallo in the U.S. House on 3/19/2010 and it was referred to committee (the House Judiciary's Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law). The subcommittee will hold a (public) hearing on April 15, 2010 that will include a petition and testimony presented by a delegation from Guam. If you have read the bill, you will note that it is the same bill (and bill number) introduced last year (2009; 111th Congress) and is no different from HR 3379 introduced by Mrs. Bordallo on 8.3.2007 (110th Congress) and actually differs greatly from RECA expansion bills introduced in the past by other legislators - those bills have been barely two lines long, limited to just 'Section 1' (very simply adding SO-AND-SO-STATE to RECA.) HR 1630 has a 'Section 2: Findings' that is more of 'resolution' (whereas...). One of the findings is an excerpt from the final report of the National Academy of Sciences' 3-year long investigation into recent scientific evidence to determine whether the RECA program should be expanded to include additional geographic areas. They released their final report - as a recommendation to Congress - in April 2005. The report was titled Assessment of the Scientific Information for the Radiation Exposure Screening and Education Program and had:
However, and this is very important to know, the NAS' report ALSO concluded that RECA expansion would "result in few successful claims" for compensation and that "in most cases it is unlikely that exposure to radiation from fallout was a substantial contributing cause to developing cancer" (p.4). The NAS claimed in a 2005 press release that if you excluded Iodine-131, fallout was "the same magnitude or less" than natural background radiation (solar radiation and sources like radon). If you include I-131, the NAS said that it was unlikely that even persons with thyroid cancer would qualify: "...it is unlikely that a very large number of individuals with cancer, even thyroid cancer, would be newly eligible for compensation. " (p.151) So, why rely on the NAS' findings at all?? They downplayed fallout's role in causing disease. Worse, HR 1630 would have the people of Guam rely on yet another agency that did more than just downplay fallout's role - they've aided in the cover-up. In Section 4, the bill stipulates that the National Cancer Institute, which waved their magic wand to convince the American public that the number of downwinder deaths from fallout was not umpteen million but a mere few thousand in 1997, would be THE agency that will 'evaluate whether an individual submitting an application...is eligible for compensation...on a case-by-case basis.' Why would you want to expand RECA to Guam and then have the NCI in cahoots with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention systematically deny each claim of the people of Guam? THAT'S WHAT THEY'LL DO. DENY 99% of the CASES. The bill shoots itself in the foot. Guam's best shot for RECA-inclusion is to collaborate with the Senators and Congresspersons from Montana, Idaho, northern Utah and Mohave County, Arizona, and collectively present a bill - that doesn't let the NCI have any role in it - to add their COMBINED states and regions to RECA. Idealist SUPPORTS Guam's efforts. Idealist wants to see Guam added to RECA. But is this bill the best that we can do? LOOKING AT THE DATA It is important to note that although there is meager data on levels of radionuclides in diet, water, air, etc... in Guam, the existing data indicates that residents of some parts of Guam may have had higher exposures than the resettled islanders of Rongelap Island (from 1957 to 1985). A University of Washington study in 1975 titled 'Radiological Study of Plants, Animals, and Soil in Micronesia' found that a sample of the edible section of a pandanu fruit in Dededo (central west coast of Guam) had a level of 18 picocuries per gram (pCi/g) of Cs-137. If Guam residents in the early 1970s had daily intakes of pandanus (per person) of 100 grams/day, then the daily dose of Cs137 per person would be 1,800 picoCuries (per day) - this would apply just to residents of Dededo. Consider that Dr. Henry Kohn, author of the Rongelap Reassessment Project Final Report in 1989, calculated that pandanu consumption on Rongelap Island comprised 27 percent of the dietary intake of Cs137. Thus, if in the early 1970s a resident of Dededo had a total daily dietary intake of Cs137 of about 6,600 picocuries, then this would be about 150% of the exposure to the Rongelapese during roughly the same time period. Kohn's Table 4.2 #2 indicates that the 1978 daily dietary Cs137 intake by the Rongelapese was about 4,000 picoCuries (3060*1.33). On
'Table 11' of the Appendix in the University of Washington's 1975
study, soil levels Cesium-137 (Cs137) in Agana were 0.24 and 1.0
picocuries per gram (pCi/g) (dry) in the 0-2.5 cm and 2.5-5 cm
stratas. Cesium-137 levels in soil in Talofofo, Guam, were
0.35, 0.38, and 0.46 picocuries per gram in the 0-2.5 cm, 2.5-5
cm, and 5-10 cm soil stratas. No
strontium-90 soil samples were taken by the Univ. of Washington
and levels of plutonium-239/240 in Agana, Guam - 0.01, 0.003 and
0.003 pCi/g in the 0-2.5 cm, 2.5-5 cm, and 5-10 cm soil stratas -
seem to fit within the 'normal' range of plutonium fallout in the
U.S.
|
Recent history: In 2007, Idaho Senators Larry Craig and Mike Crapo introduced bipartisan legislation (Bill S. 1917) in the Senate to amend RECA to include downwinders in Idaho and Montana. The bill, co-sponsored by Montana's Senators Jon Tester and Max Baucus, got stuck in the Senate Judiciary Committee (and died). They had invited Utah's senators to join their legislative attempt (to expand RECA into northern Utah) but Utah's senators declined even though the Utah state legislature unanimously passed a 2004 resolution calling for inclusion of all Utah counties.
On June 25, 2009, at the insistence of the downwinder groups in Idaho and throughout the Intermountain West, all of the senators from Idaho and Montana reintroduced legislation in the U.S. Senate to add their respective states to the RECA program. Senator Mike Crapo from Idaho introduced and read the bill the first and second times by unanimous consent, and referred it to the Senate Judiciary Committee. This is the third time the bill has been introduced over the past several years. Read the senators' joint press release. That bill too died in the Judiciary Committee.
Current: In early 2010, U.S. Congressman Trent Franks of Arizona introduced a bill in the House of Representatives to add Mohave County, AZ, to RECA via HR 4712.
A few weeks after that, on April 19, 2010, Senator Tom Udall of New Mexico introduced S. 3224 - 'A bill to amend the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act to improve compensation for workers involved in uranium mining, and for other purposes; to the Committee on the Judiciary.' (Tom Udall (D-NM) is the son of the late Steward Udall, who fought on behalf of uranium miners and fallout victims (downwinders) in the American West for compensation and recognition.)
Co-sponsored by Senators Jeff Bingaman (NM), Mike Crapo (ID), Mark Udall (CO), James Risch (ID) and Michael Bennet (CO), The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) Amendments of 2010 would expand RECA coverage (triple compensation amounts, to $150k, and provide medical benefits) for eligible downwinders in a total of seven (7) Western states (Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, and Utah), and Guam, and also widen the qualifications for those who worked in the uranium mines during the Cold War while simultaneously funding $3 million for an epidemiological study relating to health and uranium development.
* Claimants in Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, and Utah need to prove they lived there 2 years between January 21, 1951, and ending on October 31, 1958 or in July 1962.
* Claimants in New Mexico need to prove they lived there 2 years between January 21, 1951, and ending on October 31, 1958, or in July 1962, or for the period beginning on June 30, 1945, and ending on July 31, 1945.
* Claimants in Guam need to prove they lived there for a period of at least 2 years between June 30, 1946, and ending on August 19, 1958 (August 18, 1958 was the last Pacific nuclear test ('Fig') conducted on Enewetak or Bikini Atoll since testing there begin in June 1946) or for the period beginning on April 25, 1962, and ending on November 5, 1962 (The 1962 timeframes corresponds with aboveground nuclear testing on Christmas and Johnston Islands that (after a hiatus from two nuclear 1958 tests) re-commenced on April 25, 1962 and ended on November 4, 1962). (Note that the Argus series over the South Atlantic Ocean was carried out on August 27 and 30 and September 6, 1958 but folks in Guam aren't covered for this.)
We have uploaded to Scribd.com the RECA House bill (note that the eligibility requirements for leukemia are different from the requirements of all the other RECA compensable 'specified' diseases) and at the end of that document we show the marked changes to the 1990 RECA law. Here
Why (expand RECA) now? What precipitated all of this? And why didn't these Senators go after the very menace that caused this problem in the first place? Read more in 'The Black and White World of RECA' at OpedNews.com. Also read the 2007 Deseret News article 'Downwinders may have a new worry: genetic damage':'"Asked if such a [genetic damage] study would be worthwhile for Utahns who lived downwind from the Nevada Test Site, Rowland said, "Indeed it is.... Exactly it is."...Truman worried that there could be "many more [downwinders]we don't fully know about, among our children and grandchildren," harmed through genetic damage.'
The bill would allow affidavits to help victims prove residence/employment during specified periods of time: ('the Attorney General shall accept a written affidavit or declaration as evidence to substantiate an individual's physical presence in an affected area during a period'). The new bill would - two firsts! - recognize the victims (in New Mexico) of the Trinity blast (see below section) and victims in Guam of fallout from the Pacific Proving Grounds. It would also allow resubmission of previously denied RECA claims up to three times; and extend the RECA Trust Fund's termination date from its current 'sunset' in 2022 to roughly 2029 ('The Fund shall terminate 19 years after the date of the enactment of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act Amendments of 2010.'). Finally the bill would give $100,000 to each past successful downwinder claimant and also give them medical benefits ('the Attorney General shall-- `(i) pay the claimant the amount that is equal to any excess of-- `(I) the amount the claimant is eligible to receive under this Act (as amended by the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act Amendments of 2010); minus `(II) the aggregate amount paid to the claimant under this Act before the date of enactment of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act Amendments of 2010; and `(ii) in any case in which the claimant was compensated under section 4, provide the claimant with medical benefits under section 4(a)(5).')
The Senate bill was read twice (as usual) and referred to the Judiciary Committee, where most bills die but some do live to enjoy a healthy, or not, debate on the floor of the Senate/House! Read the text of the bill here (although the bill still hasn't left the government printing office and is still not available).
On April 22, 2010, a companion bill - H.R. 5119; read the bill's text here- was presented in the U.S. House by Rep. Ben Ray Luján. That bill was cosponsored by eight representatives/delegates including Delegate Madeleine Bordallo of Guam. See other co-sponsors here. (Numerology or coincidence? An anagram of 5119 is 1951, which is the year nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site commenced! 3224, the bill number of the Senate legislation, is also the number of atomic veterans who were participants in shot "Smoky" at the test site in 1957. To this day, it is still unexplained how the Smoky test resulted in roughly three times the expected leukemia rate in the participants, who were required to do troop exercises in the direct fallout region!)
The first opponent of the Senate bill, barely 24 hours after its introduction, was Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, who once called himself the 'Great Stopper.' Hatch said the new RECA bill was 'overly broad and prohibitively expensive' and reiterated his usual stance that more proof is needed (to expand RECA) although (the Deseret Times on April 20 reiterated that) 'Earlier research by the Deseret Times found secretive government maps of fallout that showed the radiation had hit most of Utah, even though just some southern counties were eligible for compensation. Maps showed that Salt Lake County and eastern Utah — which have been ineligible for compensation — sometimes were hit harder than southern Utah areas.' ('Bill seeks to triple downwinder compensation; Hatch opposes it,' 4/20/2010). Hatch has proven that he is the great stopper alright.
What also smells in Denmark (Marcellus: 'Something is rotten in Denmark?' Hamlet. Act I, Scene 4)? It turns out a Colorado law firm had a role to play in - and actually, apparently, entirely drafted - S. 3224!! Dan Popkey of the Idaho Statesmen noted in his piece 'Crapo again working on expanding compensation for downwinders' on 4.5.2010 that 'A draft of the bill was circulated this week by a Colorado law firm.' The personal injury law firm, which has fought for inequities in RECA coverage for the Navajo Nation and was contracted to lobby on its behalf for bettering RECA, is named Killian & Davis, PPC (formerly Killian, Guthro & Jensen). J. Keith Killian, a partner with the Boulder, Colorado, firm, told the Gallup Independent in October 2007 “We are currently involved in a lobbying effort to modify the laws and regulations to permit Navajo tribal members to have more equality in the administration process. In addition, changes should be made to include the post 1971 uranium workers and core drillers. Also, the eligibility for downwinder claims, including the Trinity test site, should be broadened.' The firm incidentally makes money from processing RECA claims and wrote into the bill changes to the compensation scheme for law firms that do business in processing RECA claims (again, they are one of them). The 1990 RECA law originally gave 10 percent of a claim to the attorney, but then it was reduced in a RECA amendment in year 2000 that fixed attorneys' fees for processing claims at 2 percent but gave the attorney an additional 10 percent for successfully appealing a previously denied decision (or if that lawyer had a contract to file a claim before RECA was passed). Killian wrote in the bill the original 10 percent kickback - by striking `2 percent' and inserting `10 percent' in the phrase '2 percent for the filing of an initial claim.' This is the amount above which 'the representative of an individual may not receive, for services rendered in connection with the claim of an individual under this Act...' (Haven't we seen enough of bills that were written by industry?) The great problem is that Killian's firm appears to have a much greater understanding of uranium health issues than downwinder issues and their bill reflects this weakness. More below. If you listen to Udall's speech - introduction of the bill in the Senate - his main focus was uranium workers. He mentioned the word 'uranium' 16 times, 'downwind' 5 times, and 'downwinders' only once. Udall's bill gives funding to study uranium's health effects, but no monies for downwinder studies. The Salt Lake Tribune editorialized in a piece titled 'Downwinder Claims' on April 22, 2010 that funding should be restored to 'complete a University of Utah study on the relationship between Iodine 131 fallout and thyroid disease. Funding for that important study was cut in the 1990s before it could be completed.' Read more about that under the section 'More studies, a problem? here.
BTW, when we accessed Killian & Davis' web page devoted to 'RECA Claim Eligibility' on April 20, 2010, we noticed at the bottom a ('private') note left by the web editor (?) that read '(Somewhere on this page, we should probably mention that Keith Killian is licensed in the Navajo Nation Bar Association and our success rate).'
Folks, the only reason this RECA bill is going forward is that an unnamed law firm stands to make a boat load of money from processing RECA claims and a bunch of Democratic Senators, who never really cared much before about RECA, are worried about getting re-elected in the coming years. Maybe the political party doesn't matter: Senator John McCain, who is fighting for his senate seat and has remained basically silent on the RECA issue for decades, announced in an April 28, 2010 press release that HE was going to introduce legislation to add Mohave County to RECA, a similar measure to the one introduced by Rep. Franks in February.
How many downwinder claimants are we talking about?
Regarding The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) Amendments of 2010, Idealist is working on an estimate of the number of eligible downwinder claimants in the Mountainous Western States (deceased and still living) for this proposed RECA bill, which we will call the 'new RECA.' This is a work in progress:
U.S. Census statistics that we've collected show that the 1960 population of the Mountain States excluding Wyoming, which we will refer to as MSEW (the 'new RECA' doesn't cover Wyoming) was 5,688,371 persons. This number includes those persons 5 years and older (that's how the data was published).
Let's bump this number up to 6
million to guess at the July 1962 population of MSEW. Why? We have
to add the 0-4 year olds and also account for population increases. So,
right off the bat, the number of persons eligible for the 'new RECA' on just the
qualification of being there at the right 'unfortunate' time -
living in MSEW in July 1962 - and not taking into account eligibility under RECA
compensable diseases is 6 million.
Next we need to find the number of persons who lived in the MSEW from 1951 to 1958 for at least 24 months but moved out of the region by July 1962. This is impossible to calculate with precision using the 1960 Census (although data might be found elsewhere, such as AEC population distribution study maps). We will first figure out the number of persons who stayed in the MSEW for 5 years straight in the late 1950s. The U.S. 1960 Census compiled statistics of 'migration' - of how many people, over a specified period of time (1955-1960), stayed in the same house, or stayed in the same county, or state, or region, etc....
Below we have tabulated the the number of persons in the MSEW in 1960 who had been in that region since 1955. The data is broken down by state and by region:
| States |
Stayed in same state (1955-60) |
Since 1955, moved 'here' from another MSEW state by 1960 |
Total |
| Montana | 514,078 | 10,766 | 524,844 |
| Idaho | 490,284 | 19,749 | 510,033 |
| Colorado | 1,216,173 | 28,631 | 1,244,804 |
| New Mexico | 608,834 | 27,042 | 635,876 |
| Arizona | 771,356 | 32,058 | 803,414 |
| Utah | 658,169 | 30,863 | 689,032 |
| Nevada | 82,927 | 12,998 | 95,925 |
The grand total is 4,503,928.
That is the number of persons who during 1955-1960 never left the MSEW.
The 1960 U.S. Census also tabulated that 11% of the 1955 Mountain State
population (including Wyoming) migrated out of the region by 1960. That
means that over a five year time-span a total of 11% of the population leaves
the region. (This 11 percent probably represents a disproportionate
percentage of transients compared with 5-year-non-movers, but since we are
taking into account any person who as early as 1951 lived in MSEW for two years
straight or more through 1958 and then left by July 1962, we'll stick with the 11 percent.)
As a very rough estimation of the number of persons in MSEW who lived there from
1951-1958 for at least two years but moved away before July 1962, we're going to
take 11% of 4.5 million, which is 495,000. Rounding up, we have 500,000,
or 0.5 million persons who meet the RECA qualification of being there at
the right 'unfortunate' time in the 1950s but not in July 1962.
If we add the two numbers (6 million
plus 0.5 million) we have 6.5 million persons. (This number is
probably too low, but we need to add about 300,000 persons anyway who were in New
Mexico in July 1945.) We will apply (multiply) to this
number the 'affliction rate' in a given population for RECA compensable-diseases
of about 6 percent (assuming that 15,000 'RECA diseases' afflict roughly 250,000
persons downwind; 250,000 persons is the approximate 1950s/1960s population of
rural AZ, NV, UT that is covered by the current form of RECA). 
Now, 6.5 million times 11 percent is 390,000. So, 390,000 persons in the MSEW (Mountain States Excluding Wyoming) will be eligible for the 'new RECA.' If each eligible claimant - or their survivor(s) files a claim, and each claim is approved (for $150,000), the total payout to downwinders would be $58.5 billion. We need, however, to subtract from the above total the 22,395 downwinder claimants who had already received a RECA award (they'd be getting another $100,000 each from the 'new RECA'). We actually just need to subtract the RECA downwinder awards already given out, or 22,295 * $50,000 = $1.492 billion. The grand total of estimated total new expenditure for downwinders claims (not including Guam) under the 'new RECA' is $57 billion.
Note that a deceased person is eligible for RECA (as long as their survivors successfully file a claim).
Ok, so what's wrong with most RECA expansion bills? Below we show the RECA coverage proposed in Udall's draft legislation that we superimposed on a map indicating levels of strontium-90 in U.S. milk in August 1963. Why did we do this? Note that the current version of RECA requires that a resident in the Mountain States (excluding Wyoming, and New Mexico in July 1945) prove he/she lived in a downwinder area any 2 years between 1951 and 1958 or during 31 measly days in July 1962 (but what a 31 days it was!: chart). Those were the timeframes of NTS testing. But radioactive debris actually was falling out of the atmosphere and foodstuffs were still spiked with radioactivity (1) before testing at the NTS began in 1951 (U.S. nuclear testing began in 1945 and continued in the Pacific through the early 1960s), (2) during a global nuclear test ban between 1958 and 1961 (when fallout was still circling the globe and contaminating watersheds, milksheds and food supplies), (3) and after the last NTS test was conducted in 1962 (fallout levels on the ground and in food didn't decrease, but kept increasing in 1963 and 1964 - see over 200 maps that prove this here). This applies not only to the Intermountain West but the contiguous United States. This below map shows that downwinders didn't get sick just from NTS tests during the years of those tests, but also from delayed fallout and Pacific (and Soviet, and Chinese, and French...) fallout. Read our call for nationwide compensation and a global truth commission. We need to seriously stop thinking that these RECA bills will help us close a sad chapter in our history but, rather, that they are part of just the beginning of a process of closing that chapter. There is a whole lot more we need to do to, including: Better radiation monitoring. Study the fallout. Fund downwinder studies. Close the NTS. Stop subcritical tests. Ratify the CTBT.
Learn about legislative
actions to add Guam to RECA in the boxed feature.
New Mexico and Trinity fallout
The first nuclear test in world history, Trinity, which was conducted in 1945, is perhaps the most propagandized of all nuclear tests. The health and environmental effects of Trinity have been suppressed and ignored to such an extent that virtually no one, past and present, even including the bi-annual visitors to the Trinity ground-zero, has given thought to the long-term consequences of the first-ever atomic blast. Few people are aware that fallout from Trinity traveled far - from the southwest to the Midwest. Authors of a journal article published in Health Physics in 1990 reconstructed Trinity's fallout pattern (map), extending the fallout path - from the originally path calculated by federal agencies - to include two additional, neighboring states (Colorado and Oklahoma). Even that map doesn't tell the whole story, of far-reaching fallout that affected film at a Kodak facility in Indiana. Secondly, very few people are aware that Trinity's long-lived radiation is spewed across New Mexico. In the book 'Trinity's Children,' authors Tad Bartimus and Scott McCartney break the silence of Trinity's deadly secret: that the Trinity bomb 'was not a terrifically efficient explosion - it didn't use up all of the plutonium in the core. So tiny bits of "unexploded" plutonium was spread over hundreds of miles.'
The authors explain further: 'A 1978 inquiry noted a lack of specific information on the plutonium fallout but said the area was "one of the significant plutonium contaminated areas in the United States, both in terms of quantity of plutonium deposited and area extended"... And a 1983 field investigation noted: "Even after 38 years, there are large areas (near ground zero) where vegetation is not growing." Many of the ranchers who lived in the area in the time of Trinity have died from cancer, but no scientific studies were initiated. The ranchers wonder why,' when Utah families, downwind of Nevada fallout, have received compensation and health studies.
Why propagandize the Trinity test? There are many reasons, one of them is that defense agencies for decades have chosen to conduct several non-nuclear (ANFO) explosions in very close proximity to the Trinity Site. Dice Throw (1976) was detonated at a distance of 'less than three miles' and Minor Scale (1985) - the largest conventional explosive test in world history (known outside the USSR) - was set off two miles from the atomic blast site. One of the dark secrets of testing at WSMR is that the ANFO tests conducted by the Defense Nuclear Agency likely ejected radioactive soils ten thousand feet (or higher) into the atmosphere in New Mexico. In 2007, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency conducted massive ordnance penetrator or MOP tests at the White Sands Missile Range less than 20 miles from the Trinity site.
Trinity victims in New Mexico and Colorado - and possibly in Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, Illinois and Indiana - are being shafted by RECA. RECA ought to be expanded to include these Trinity downwinders.
The sad fact is that very few people actually care about downwinders. There are people who just care about getting elected and will say whatever to make that happen. There are others preoccupied with just the science of fallout and health effects. There are the lawyers who pour over legal language and revenue projections (they profit off downwinders' claims). There are others who, rightly so, are concerned with getting RECA money in their pocket or finally having medical insurance so they can go see a doctor or a specialist. There are others who want some form of apology, or want someone to 'pay' for hurting their loved ones - they seek justice. There are those who want RECA expanded to one or two extra areas because they note the absurdity that radioactive clouds disappeared at the boundaries of the existing 'downwind areas' delineated by RECA. There are others who curse or reject the whole idea of downwind compensation, either because they deny any harm was ever done by the fallout, or cringe at the financial costs, or wonder at the precedent it sets: why not, then, compensate victims from other past abuses, like slavery. There are also the news agencies who clumsily try to paint all the different faces talking about the downwinders.
But what about all of the downwinders: who cares about all of them? You can't draw lines on a map - saying only 'these people' were affected - because fallout traveled all over the map. Actually fallout traveled all over every single map (fallout was detected everywhere from the North Pole to the southern tips of South America, Australia and Africa). You can't compensate victims from just one test site in Nevada and one in the Pacific because then you'd be ignoring the fallout from other countries' bomb tests, or our nuclear weapons labs, or our 'broken arrows,' or our Project Plowshare releases, etc... What about the fact that long-lived weapons testing radioactive fallout is still in our biosphere, and gets continually resuspended by wind and reintegrated into our bodies from our foods?
Idealist's advice is to take all of this in account when you read and hear things about downwinders. Know that there are more victims than you can imagine. Know that there are downwind victims in more places than you can imagine. Know that there is more you or anyone can do to help downwinders than you can imagine. Most importantly, know that the changes we need to make in our world for downwinders are so transformative that this must be called, and we are still at the beginning of, a struggle. Yes, a struggle, not unlike civil rights, or voting rights. In the early moments of a struggle, no one in the general public gave much thought to the rights of the disenfranchised. In the early times of a struggle, there was little awareness that freedoms and peoples' well-beings were being neglected. In the beginnings of a struggle, few people knew that there were so many victims in so many places that needed so much help.
A struggle is born when out of the thousands and thousands of victims, one voice screams out and points out that they are being exploited and ignored. They cry, "No one cares for us! We are struggling. Look at us!" That voice is the first demand to the collective moral consciousness that repression must end.
The downwinder struggle is just beginning. And you can be part of that struggle. When you read and hear things about downwinders, think about the downwinders themselves. Ask yourself: Is what I'm reading and hearing addressing all the downwind victims in all the downwind places in the world in all of the ways they need help? If not, then you need to be that sole voice of the downwinders and call out "What about the other downwinders? What are we doing for them?" Next, learn, learn, and then learn some more. So much about the plight of downwinders isn't known even by the victims themselves because of the war on information that was waged on them. They were systemically lied to and denied access to information for decades about the fallout events that were impacting our lives. They still don't have access to distilled, truthful information. They still don't have access to classified information and scientific studies that could shed light on their exposures. Yet there is enough public information on these topics that we can begin restoring relevance to historical events concerning atomic history and fallout exposure. We can share this enlightened view of our collective atomic past and exposures in our dialogues with our friends, colleagues and the general public. Through this emphasis on the relevancy of radiation in our environment, the general public will become more receptive to learning how to keep safe in our present day world that is fraught with new radiation dangers. These include nuclear power plant releases, radioactive dust-storms, poor radiation monitoring, etc... Your education can be the key that will turn and ignite public awareness about downwinders.
Finally, know that just as the 1964 Civil Rights Act did not end the civil rights struggle, neither will the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act end the downwinder rights struggle. The breadth of the RECA law will grow as our struggle, and the public's compassion, grows. You can play a part in this. You can be part of the downwinder rights movement.
Read our thoughts about compassion and downwinders at our oped 'Senators now have compassion, for downwinders, now what?'.
No past or present RECA legislation addresses the nuclear testing radiation victims located in, or in proximity to, any of the four test sites comprising the U.S. Pacific Proving Ground. The Pacific Proving Grounds (PPG) is situated east of Guam - yes, Guam wasn't technically downwind of any of the nuclear tests (however her harbors were extensively polluted in the 1940s and 1950s during decontamination of U.S. naval vessels irradiated in bomb tests and again later in the 1970s during decontamination of ships used for islands cleanup). The PPG extends all the way to Christmas Island and Johnston Atoll, the closest island systems to the southwest and south, respectively, to Hawaii. Two of the PPG test sites - Enewetak and Bikini Atoll - are located directly in (what is now) the territory of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, which were blanketed in fallout by the largest-ever atom and hydrogen bomb tests by the U.S. from 1946 through 1958. Thousands of Islanders developed serious radiation-linked diseases and their babies were born with horrible deformities, often dubbed the 'octopus' or 'jelly' babies who have no limbs, faces and organs. Wouldn't it make sense that if Guam gets Congress' downwinder compensation, shouldn't also the Marshall Islanders, Hawaiians, etc..?
Here's what compensation Marshall Islanders DID get:
In 1986, the US government established a $150 million trust fund to compensate all claims for 'Pacific downwinders,' past and future (the fund was expected to yield about $270 million, in 15 years, through 2001) . The trust fund agreement simultaneously nullified all lawsuits pending in U.S. courts claiming a total of about $7 billion in damages and, due to an 'espousal' clause, cut off all rights of the Republic of the Marshall Islands to again sue in U.S. courts for compensation. The Marshall Islands Nuclear Claims Tribunal, set up under an agreement between the former US territory and Washington, had to suspend compensation payments in 2005 when the U.S. funds ran out (the roughly $270 million ran out). The Tribunal, however, has awarded two billion dollars in compensation payments for land damages and 22 million dollars in payments for personal injury awards, all outstanding and unpaid because of lack of funds. The reason for this is that radiation-inflicted damages turned out to be worse than known, or anticipated, in 1986, when the agreement settlement was concluded.
The Tribunal makes several compelling cases why they couldn't have known the extent of radiation damages in 1986. [Read about 'Changed Circumstances'] One example is the fact that a critical 1955 report detailing radiation fallout doses from six nuclear texts during the Operation Castle series of 1954 was declassified only in 1995 and was not available to them during their settlement negotiation in the 1980s. The report showed that, using 1957 and 1959 (and later) radiation protection standards, nearly all of the 22 populated atolls had exceeded maximum yearly doses for radiation. The Tribunal suggests, on its website, that exposures likely were much greater than even the 1955 report suggests because that report (a) doesn't combine internal doses with external ones, (b) 'external values given are, in general, underestimations,' and (c) 'monitoring was conducted over only a 12-week period, not an entire year.' The Tribunal also notes that fallout measurements from the last two series of tests conducted in the Pacific still remain classified nearly 40 years after the final test. The Tribunal has made numerous requests to obtain exposure information on these two series.
In 2000, the Marshall Islanders filed a petition for additional nuclear test compensation from the U.S. government, asking for a renegotiation of the financial settlement. The justification for their petition lies in Article IX of the 1980s Agreement entitled "Changed Circumstances." Article IX provides that:
"If loss or damage to property and person of the citizens of the Marshall Islands, resulting from the Nuclear Testing Program, arises or is discovered after the effective date of this Agreement, and such injuries were not and could not reasonably have been identified as of the effective date of this Agreement, and if such injuries render the provisions of this Agreement manifestly inadequate, the Government of the Marshall Islands may request that the Government of the United States provide for such injuries by submitting such a request to the Congress of the United States for its consideration. It is understood that this Article does not commit the Congress of the United States to authorize and appropriate funds."
The Republic of the Marshall Islands has received no formal response from either the administrations of President George W. Bush or Barack Obama, or Congress. The U.S. State Department, in a report to Congress in 2007, said bluntly that the US had no legal obligation to provide more funding.
Question: Is the U.S. posture towards outstanding bomb-test-radiation-inflicted land and personal injury damages of the Marshall Islanders legally and morally justified?
The Tribunal's website states conclusively 'it has become clear that the original terms of the settlement agreement are manifestly inadequate.'
Read more on our Pacific Testing page
December 12, 2008 - U.S. refuses Marshalls bid to use aid for nuclear victims
APIL urges Guam inclusion in RECA
Marianas Variety
By
Therese Hart
Variety News Staff
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
A RESOLUTION recently passed by the Association of Pacific Island Legislatures during its 27th assembly held on Guam will include Guam as an affected area to the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act of 1990.
The resolution states that the United States conducted testing of atomic nuclear weapons on Enewetok and Bikini Atolls in the Marshall Islands from 1946 to 1962. A total of 67 atomic and thermonuclear bombs were detonated causing radiation fallout across a wide area of the Pacific, including Guam.
Many people subsequently developed serious diseases, including various types of cancer
...According to the resolution, reports from the Navy indicated that it had full knowledge of the test and did not warn the local population, and ships present during the nuclear testing were decontaminated in Guam's harbors with acidic detergents, and the runoff went directly to the local fishing and reef environments.
...Congresswoman Madeleine Z. Bordallo introduced HR 3379 in August 2007 to amend RECA to include Guam in the list of affected areas with respect to claims relating to atmospheric testing shall be allowed.
APIL has asked Sen. Mike Crapo to amend S. 1917 introduced on August 2007 in the 110th Congress to include Guam as an affected area.
Contact your elected leaders in the House and Senate (also here)
Idealist's public document archives: 1. 
2.
'The
greatest irony of our atmospheric nuclear testing program is that
the only
victims of U.S. nuclear arms since World War II have been our own people.'
- Forgotten
Guinea Pigs Report, 1980
In 1986, the U.S. Dept. of Energy used the cover of the Chernobyl fallout cloud over the United States to release huge amounts of radiation into the air from a failed underground Nevada nuclear test. It was called Mighty Oak.
learn more on our global fallout page
This site best viewed
in Firefox
