The first meeting of the new makeup of the Yavapai County Board of Supervisors following the November election took place in Prescott on Wednesday, Jan. 8. District 2 Supervisor James Gregory was reelected as chairman and District 1 supervisor Brooks Compton was elected vice chairman.
Proclamations
The board approved two proclamations during the meeting designating Monday, Jan. 27, as a “Day of Remembrance for American Downwinders” and the week starting on Sunday, Jan. 19, as “National Medicolegal Death Investigator Week” in Yavapai County.
“This one is very personal to me, as my families are also victims,” Compton said before reading the Downwinder proclamation.
“Despite the assurances of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, many Yavapai County residents working and living downwind from aboveground nuclear testing sites were adversely affected by the radiation exposure generated by the above-ground nuclear weapons testing,” the proclamation stated.
The U.S. military conducted more than 100 above-ground nuclear tests at the Nevada Test Site, formerly known as the Nevada Proving Ground, between 1951 and 1992. The fallout from these tests subsequently spread across the Southwest, affecting northern Arizona, Nevada and southern Utah. Individuals who lived in these areas between 1947 and 1962 are known as “Downwinders.”
The federal Radiation Exposure Compensation Act that funded medical care for downwinders and uranium miners recently expired in June 2024. Sherrie Hanna, a Downwinder activist, told the board that she hoped that funding from the federal government would resume with the new administration and Elise Whitman, a staff assistant for U.S. Rep. Eli Crane [R], read a letter from Crane to that effect.
“Americans poisoned by our government’s nuclear tests and waste will not be awarded the lifesaving help afforded by the RECA program for the last 30 years. Congress cannot let this stand,” Whitman read. “I have cosponsored H.R. 6753, the Uranium Miners and Workers Act, which reauthorizes the RECA program for an additional four years to allow exposure victims to file claims as their symptoms manifest.”
Grants
The board also approved staff recommendations for applications for Community Development Block Grants for Verde Valley Habitat for Humanity, Prescott Valley Food Bank and Prescott Valley Meals on Wheels as well as for the Yavapai County Development Services Environmental Unit to replace cesspools in Ash Fork and Seligman with septic systems. The Northern Arizona Council of Governments estimated that the county will receive $1.3 million in CBDG funding, with awards to be issued in September.
“Yavapai County is allotted Community Development Block Grant funds every four years, which must be used to serve low-to-moderate income residents of the county,” a Yavapai County press release stated.
“The source is Federal Housing and Urban Development funds through the Arizona Department of Housing, which is administered by NACOG in Northern Arizona. The process for the county’s 2025 CDBG funding began in the fall of 2024 with public hearings for project input.”
The anticipated award amounts for the three projects are $519,000 for Meals on Wheels and the Prescott Valley Food Bank, $400,000 for Verde Valley Habitat for Humanity and $280,000 out of a $500,000 request for Yavapai County Development Services.
Eleven organizations had applied for CBDG grants, including Cottonwood-based Steps to Recovery Homes, which had requested $400,000 to purchase a property for transitional housing; the town of Camp Verde, which had requested $650,000 to extend the sidewalk along 7th Street; and Hope House of Sedona, which had requested $201,771 to increase its support services for homeless students and their families in the Sedona area.
“At this time we plan on moving forward with the continuation of the 7th Street sidewalk project in 2026 when we are scheduled to receive our scheduled CDBG funding which is separate from the funding request that we had brought to the Yavapai County Board of Supervisors,” Camp Verde Director of Public Works Ken Krebbs said.
“Nearly 40% of all households in the Verde Valley alone are housing cost burdened, paying more than 30% of their income toward housing, leaving little money after all the bills are paid for home maintenance and repairs,” VVHH wrote in its grant application, which noted that the funds it has applied for will be used for its home repair program and are expected to benefit around 50 homeowners.
The Yavapai County Development Services Environmental Unit requested $500,000 to replace aging cesspools around Ash Fork and Seligman, estimating a cost of $10,000 to $40,000 for each new septic system.
While cesspools have been a standard method of managing human waste for thousands of years, and old cesspools are a valuable source of data for archaeologists, the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality banned them in the 1970s and required that new homes be constructed with connections to septic or sewer systems.
“For the last 50 years, cesspools have basically been illegal, so when they fail, they can’t be replaced [or] be repaired,” Yavapai County Developmental Services Director Jeremy Dye said. “Those cesspools are primarily up in the Ash Fork and Seligman areas. But there they are all over the county … We’re estimating in Yavapai County anywhere from 5,000 to 10,000 cesspools. The number could actually be much higher.”
“In the last few years, we’re seeing an uptick in these homes; their systems are starting to fail and we’re going to see more of that as time goes on in these old systems,” Dye said.
