Utah 'downwinders' remember

Fifty years later, Billy Whitehorse remembers the strange glows that would flash off the scenic red buttes of the Navajo Reservation in southern Utah.

"The Navajo people were mostly uneducated," he said. "They didn't know about the nuclear testing in Nevada."

Whitehorse was among the Navajos, the uranium miners and the downwinders gathered at the Capitol Saturday for what the governor and lawmakers have proclaimed "A Day of Remembrance" to recognize the thousands of people sickened by radiation in America's race to win the Cold War.

"Today is very important," thundered J. Preston Truman, director of Downwinders. On Jan. 27, 1951, the nuclear-weapons-testing program began, he added, setting off one of the most dramatic and deadly decades in U.S. history.

The fallout was felt around the world, most severely in Utah. Then began the struggle with the federal government.

"The reason why this anniversary is important to us is the U.S. government admitted the truth," Truman said. "Sort of."

Growing up in southern Utah, Truman was exposed not only to radiation but to the government propaganda. "People who live near the Nevada Test Site are active participants who contributed greatly to the defense," he read from a little green book he received in grade school. "Some of you have been inconvenienced. Nevertheless, you have accepted it without fuss and alarm. No one outside the boundaries has been hurt by the six years of testing," the book read.

It wasn't until 1980 when Congress admitted it "misinformed" the public about the affects of the atomic blasts, Truman said. "We went from being active participants to the forgotten guinea pigs."

Downwinders called on Congress to live up to its promise and compensate those sick and dying of radiation poison, including many of the miners who dug uranium from the earth that went into nuclear warheads.

Congress passed the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act in 1990 to help uranium miners and others who became ill due to radioactive fallout from the federal government's nuclear weapons program. The law provides $100,000 to each underground uranium miner who had one of six lung diseases linked to radiation exposure. The law was amended in 2000 to expand the list of cancers eligible for compensation and expanded the geographic areas not covered under the original act.

But Ed Brickey and others haven't seen a penny.

"We have a law passed and signed by the president with no funds," said Brickey, a former miner who represents Colorado uranium workers. "They're ill, and their days are limited," he added.

Melton Martinez, who works to help sick Navajos apply for compensation, said the $20 million provided by the government isn't nearly enough to pay for the 260 people who received IOUs.

Soon it will be too late, he fears.

"We're still losing friends and families to radiation exposure," he said.

---

E-mail: donna@desnews.com