After stalling in June 2024 when Congress failed to vote on its renewal, the federal program providing medical care for uranium miners and “downwinders,” the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, will restart and expand through December 2028 following the July 4 signing of the “Big Beautiful Bill.”
“A ‘downwinder’ is a person who was exposed or presumed to be exposed to radiation from the explosion of nuclear devices at the federal Nevada Test Site. These nuclear tests took place in the 1950s and 1960s,” according to the Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah. “Fallout carried by winds contaminated residents in counties of Arizona, Nevada and Utah,” according to Sharlot Hall Museum.
“After 1962, many test site workers and local citizens filed class-action lawsuits alleging exposure to radiation, but these suits were dismissed by the courts. In October 1990, Congress enacted the RECA, which today provides monetary compensation to people who developed certain cancers as a result of radiation exposure.”
The Yavapai County Board of Supervisors has been approving an annual resolution to designate a “Day of Remembrance for American Downwinders,” most recently on Jan. 27.
“Despite the assurances of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, many Yavapai County residents working and living downwind from above- ground nuclear testing sites were adversely affected by the radiation exposure generated by the above-ground nuclear weapons testing,” the proclamation stated.
The compensation has been increased to $100,000 in most cases up from the original amount of $50,000 to $70,000. For survivors, the compensation can cover medical costs or they can choose to receive a one-time payment of $50,000. Family members of those who died from one of 20 cancers after living in affected areas may receive a one-time restitution of $25,000, divided among the heirs.
RECA now encompasses a broader group of uranium industry workers, including miners, millers, ore transporters and core drillers who worked in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming, South Dakota, Washington, Utah, Idaho, North Dakota, Oregon, or Texas between Jan. 1, 1942, and Dec. 31, 1990. Previously, eligibility coverage had expired in 1971.
Over the past 35 years, the Justice Department has administered RECA and awarded more than $2.736 billion to 42,579 claimants. Claims for 40 people are pending as of July 9, according to the DOJ.
However, the DOJ, “is reviewing the amendments to RECA and will provide additional guidance as it becomes available,” the DOJ website reads. “Claimants are encouraged to wait until additional guidance is published before filing a claim.”
RECA coverage within Arizona has now been expanded to downwinders in Mohave County south of the Grand Canyon.
“This is justice, which is long overdue for the people of Mohave County,” Matt Capalby, a remaining board member of the Downwinders of Mohave County, wrote in a press release. “For years we, as downwinders, have lived with the lethal consequences of the nuclear fallout from the Nevada Test Site, without recognition or support. The people of Mohave County and more others from around our nation, suffered and died. This was due to the devastating effects of radiation exposure from the numerous sites attributed to our nation’s nuclear weapons program. Many of our citizens were sacrificed for the sake of our national security.”
Capalby praised the work of U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley [R-Mo.] and Arizona’s U.S. Reps. Paul Gosar [R-District 9] and Greg Stanton [D-District 4] and the Union of Concerned Scientists in helping secure the new funding.
“A bright spot in this otherwise terrible reconciliation bill is that it finally allows some of the people harmed by nuclear weapons testing and production to access a federal program from which they were unfairly excluded,” Gretchen Goldman, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists, said in a statement. “That truly is a win for thousands of people across the country, including the people harmed by the first atomic bomb test in New Mexico.
“However, this fight is not over,” Capalby wrote. “Unfortunately, there are still people and areas that were not included in this legislation and are still suffering from our nation’s ‘Cold War’ nuclear weapons program. Areas in Nevada, Guam, multiple islands [in] the South Pacific, Ohio and several impacted regions were unfairly and inexplicably left out. Subsequently, we will be continuing our advocacy efforts until all of the people that have suffered and died, receive justice.”
A new RECA eligibility category now includes uranium workers and communities affected by radiation exposure in Alaska, Kentucky, Tennessee and Missouri.
“It wasn’t just the people of Missouri who had waited for seventy years to have justice done. It was the people of the Navajo Nation; It was the people of Utah; It was the people of New Mexico; It was the people of Idaho; It was the uranium miners and atomic veterans from all over the country, who have been waiting for decades for the federal government to finally own up to what it had done,” Hawley wrote in a press release. “RECA is the government saying, ‘what we did was wrong. Lying to you was wrong and we are finally going to make it right.’”
Over 200 million pounds of purified uranium was produced at the Mallinckrodt Chemical Works factory in St. Louis, Missouri that caused contamination of Coldwater Creek, a tributary of the Missouri River.
For more information visit justice.gov/civil/common/reca
