Downwinders Across West Commemorate National Day of Remembrance

Photo Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas

Downwinders Across West Commemorate

National Day of Remembrance

       Across the West, downwinders are staging events to mark what the U.S. Senate has designated a national Day of Remembrance for victims of nuclear weapons testing on Friday, January 27, the date in 1951 on which the first nuclear weapons tests were conducted at the Nevada Test Site.

       The Senate resolution was introduced by Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), who is also one of six western senators pushing for the expansion of compensation to downwinders. During the Cold War, the United States detonated more than 1,000 nuclear weapons at the Nevada Test Site. Clouds of fallout filled with radioactive isotopes spread across the U.S., exposing a generation of Americans. The West was particularly hard hit.

       In Utah, Governor Gary Herbert, local leaders in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County, Kane County and Springdale have joined with the U.S. Senate in designating Jan. 27 as a Day of Remembrance.

       “It’s important that we preserve the past, but it’s also important that we protect the future,” says downwinder Eve Mary Verde. “The cancers we’ve suffered and the loved ones we’ve lost demand more than one day of remembrance. They demand that we act. We must bring a permanent end to nuclear weapons testing and we must ensure justice for downwinders affected by past tests.”

       In Salt Lake City, downwinders will honor the silent victims of the Cold War in the Hall of Governors at the Utah State Capitol at noon on Friday. Making remarks at the event will be Rep. Jim Matheson, a long-time advocate for downwinders and Salt Lake City downwinder Mary Dickson; Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker, presenting his proclamation; and Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon, presenting his proclamation. They’ll be joined by a bi-partisan group of current and former state representatives who sponsored past resolutions concerning nuclear weapons testing and downwinders.

       That evening, the Utah Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, will hold a candlelight vigil honoring and remembering downwinders at 5:30 p.m. at the Episcopal Church Center of Utah, 75 S. 200 E. Remarks will be made by the Very Reverend Raymond Joe Waldon, Jr., Dean and Rector of the Episcopal Cathedral of St. Marks in Salt Lake City and the Reverend Steve Klenz, Pastor of the Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church in Salt Lake City.

       A commemoration is set for noon Friday at Utah Valley University in the Library Lecture Hall, room 120. The event will include films as well as a history of fallout in Utah County by J. Preston Truman, head of Downwinders, Inc.

       Elsewhere in Utah, resolutions and proclamations marking the Day of Remembrance have been passed by Springdale Mayor Pat Cluff. The Kane County Commission passed a resolution Monday. Ironically, the mayor of St. George, which was the epicenter of fallout, for undisclosed reasons declined to declare Jan. 27 a Day of Remembrance.

       Elsewhere in the West, vigils are scheduled in Boise, Idaho; Kingman, Arizona. Downwinders will gather across northern New Mexico and southwest Colorado and in Montana, as well.

       The Salt Lake County, Salt Lake City and Springdale resolutions include support of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty – which would put in place a global ban on nuclear weapons testing -- and the expansion of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA). Currently RECA covers only 10 counties in Utah, even though studies have documented that counties across Utah and the West received dangerously high levels of fallout.

       A 2005 Congressional Report from the Committee on Government Reform found that “radiation associated cancer is actually more common in counties where residents are excluded from compensation than in those counties where residents are included under RECA law.”

       A bipartisan group of six western senators introduced a bill into Congress which would provide RECA coverage to all areas hit by fallout in the West. The bill , being pushed by Sen. Tom Udall (D-New Mexico), Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D- New Mexico), Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), James Risch (R-Idaho), Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colorado), Sen. Mark Udall, (D-Colorado), has currently stalled in Congress.

       “This about getting justice and medical assistance for all those who were harmed by fallout,” says J. Preston Truman. “We’re not willing to forget nor to forgive. We’re going to make sure it never happens again, which is why it’s so important to remember what started on that day 61 years ago when we were told, ’There is no danger.’ We owe it to ourselves, those who have died, but more importantly to our children and future generations that we pass the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty so no new downwinders will be created.”


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