Representing the Tularosa Basin Downwinder Consortium at SALA Saturday evening for the screening of Lois Lipman’s documentary film ‘First They Bombed New Mexico’ are from left, Lois Lipman, Dr. Arlene Brown, Bernice Gutierrez, Prof. Myrriah Gomez, TBDC cofounder Tina Cordova, Arlene Juanico and Larry Juanico. Photo by Maire O’Neill/losalamosreporter.com
SALA Event Center owner Alan Saenz and Sen. Leo Jaramillo welcome Trinity Test downwinders to the Oppenheimer Festival screening of ‘First We Bombed New Mexico’. Photo by Maire O’Neill/losalamosreporter.com
State Sen. Leo Jaramillo, left, with Tina Cordova, co-founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, and Allan Saenz, owner of SALA Event Center and organizer of the Oppenheimer Festival. Photo by Maire O’Neill/losalamosreporter.com
BY MAIRE O’NEILL
maire@losalamosreporter.com
It was an event that many people who attended will never forget. It was the screening Saturday evening at SALA Event Center in Los Alamos of the film “First We Bombed New Mexico”, an award-winning new documentary by Lois Lipman about the Tularosa Downwinders. The film will be screened several times during SALA’s ongoing Oppenheimer Festival, which includes a long list films and lectures. See https://losalamosreporter.com/2024/08/19/oppenheimer-festival-and-more-at-sala-aug-22-aug-25/ The film will be screened again, Aug. 22, 23, 24 at 6 p.m., Aug. 25 at 5:30 p.m., August 29, 30, 31 at 6 p.m.
Attendees at the event were introduced by SALA owner Allan Saenz during dinner to film producer Lois Lipman as well as Tina Cordova, co-founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium and several other downwinders who are seeking justice for the unknowing, unwilling and uncompensated, innocent victims affected by the detonation by the U.S, of the world’s first nuclear bomb on July 16, 1945 near White Sands. The downwinders, as those who were never forewarned about the Trinity Test or the nuclear fallout and exposure that would affect them and future generations adversely for the rest of their lives and cause the horrible cases of multigenerational cancers that began as years went by causing the deaths of many, many members of downwinders’ families that are still occurring today.
Although the plight of the Trinity Test downwinders is known to many, what is not known is that they have been waiting for 79 years to receive any type of compensation for what happened to them and their families. Downwinders from other states have been receiving compensation under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act since 1990 https://www.justice.gov/civil/common/reca In 2016, the Department of Justice announced that it had paid out more than $6 billion in “in compassionate compensation to eligible claimants” under RECA. Downwinders of the Nevada Test Site have been eligible for compensation for payments, however, only Nevada is shown on the RECA map of downwinder locations, although New Mexicans lived as close as 12 miles from the Trinity Site and were hit with nuclear fallout that fell on their bodies, their land and their water. There were no warnings and no evacuations.
Lipman’s film documents the Tularosa Basin Downwinders efforts since 2005 to expand RECA, which actually expired in June 2024.
State Sen. Leo Jaramillo, speaking Saturday evening prior to the screening, noted that there is still no compensation for the downwinders.
“So when I think about Mrs. (Tina) Cordova and her fight, she doesn’t stand alone because I’m a proud Norteño that stands with you and continues to work with our national delegation to ensure that compensation will come because I will not stop fighting, Mrs. Cordova, until it does and you can count on me,” Sen. Jaramillo said. “In the traditional way of Hispanos in Northern New Mexico, I would like to say that ‘bendiciones’ are blessings. We’re going to ask for bendiciones to come to the people who were hurt downwind. We’re also going to ask for bendiciones for people who don’t understand the consequences of what happened, because sometimes people do not know our story. It’s up to us that we share our story as Hispanos and Nuevo Mexicanos to ensure that the next generation in New Mexico will be kept safe.”
Lois Lipman noted how important it is that her film is shown in Los Alamos.
“As you see the film, which really tells the story, which I’ve been honored to tell, there are a lot of people here who are in the film, downwinders, uranium miners, Dr. Arlene Brown, who’s had the courage to tell this story, and Prof. Myrriah Gomez. It took courage,” Lipman said. “People don’t know the story. You will know it after you watch this: film. We need to continue to take this film down the road and ultimately it needs to get distributed. It even needs an Academy Award campaign, because that’s how the story will become known and that’s how compensation will finally occur – when people finally know this story.”
She pleaded with anyone who wanted to get on board or contribute to get in touch with her because it costs a lot of money to bring this film on the road. She added that many of the downwinders present Saturday and others have traveled around the country with her, promoting the film and participating in Q & A session after each screening.
Tina Cordova, the cofounder of the Tularosa Valley Downwinders Consortium 19 years ago, said their goal was to bring attention to the negative effects suffered by the people of New Mexico after being over-exposed to radiation from the Trinity bombing.
“We’ve collected a lot of data throughout our time and one piece of data that I think it’s important for everyone to know in advance of seeing the film, that we took the 1940 census data and overlaid that on a map of New Mexico. The Trinity Site was pinpointed and radiuses were drawn at 10-increments. While forever the narrative has been that no one lived here and that no one was harmed at the time of Trinity, the truth is there were more than 13,000 children, women and men living in a 50-mile radius,” Cordova said. ” If you extend that radius to 150 miles, it encompasses Albuquerque to the north and El Paso and Ciudad Juarez to the south. It encompasses Silver City and the Arizona border to the west and it almost encompasses the Texas border to the east. Then it’s 500,000 people.” “
She said the thought that no one lived in the area and that no one was harmed is absolutely not true.
“We’re so grateful that you all are here to engage with us around this subject matter. It’s been far too long that we lived separate lives. We are not separated by boundaries. We are not separate people. We all live in this state together and I would like to think that because of that we consider each other to be neighbors, friends – we’re relatives with some of you and we’re just glad that you’re here tonight to embrace this film. It’s been far too long that we’ve been living separate lives. We should be standing together for what is right,” Cordova said.
She said right now the fund that’s been set up for 34 years and has been taking care of downwinders from other places should be extended to the people of New Mexico.
“I think a lot of this is data-driven. You live in New Mexico and you may not identify as a downwinder but if you live in New Mexico, you’ve been affected by this. We are the state most dependent on Medicaid in the whole country. Forty-seven percent of all the people of New Mexico – the number is larger than that because that is just the number that are enrolled – access healthcare through Medicaid. We’ve been collecting health surveys for more than 17 years and that is one of the questions we ask. How do you access healthcare wen you’re sick? Inevitably people mark Medicaid or Medicare. Why is that? That’s because when you get too sick to work any longer, you’re options are very limited. You no longer have healthcare coverage through your job,” Cordova said,.
She said what happens is that people end up spending And what happens is that you end up spending everything they have on their healthcare.
“This includes your retirement, your equity in your home, your savings, your maxed out credit cards. You have to travel out of state for cancer care. All of a sudden all you are ever able to pass on to your children is the debt you accumulated while you were sick. So let me tell you the second statistic. Recently we learned that New Mexico is one of the states carrying the highest medical debt in the country. We have a little over two million people living here who are carrying $881 million in medical debt – close to a billion dollars in medical debt. That is not a sustainable equation. It is one of the reasons we see poverty in this state. It’s one of the reasons we see that distinct poverty, because of these small communities that were so over-exposed to radiation where people are sick and dying and have never been able to develop generational wealth. What happens is that you get stick in generational poverty,” Cordova said. Again, I’m glad we’re engaging together as neighbors, as occupants of the same state where we’re all hoping for a better life for our children and our children’s children. That’s why we do this work.”
Cordova shared other details following the screening. She noted that the bomb was plutonium-based and that it was packed with 13 pounds of weapons grade plutonium but that only 3 pounds fissioned leaving the remaining 10 pounds behind. The fireball explosion of the bomb penetrated the stratosphere and traveled seven miles high. Plutonium has a half life of more than 24,000 years or 7,000 generations Once the radioactive ash fell from the sky as fallout, it settled on everything.
The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act was originally passed in 1990 to cover on-site workers and test participants, uranium workers, which includes millers, miners and/or transporters up until the year 1971. Although the downwinders in New Mexico were the first people to be exposed to radiation anywhere in the world as the result of a bomb, they are still fighting for the same partial restitution and health care coverage.
On July 27, 2023, the U.S. Senate overwhelmingly passed amendments to RECA (69 to 30) as part of the National Defense Authorization Act. Since then the downwinders have been waiting for the U.S. House to do the same thing. However, it was not to be. In June 24, 2024, the RECA program expired and the downwinders and others have been putting pressure on House Speaker Mike Johnson to bring the issue to the floor for a vote. Johnson will be in New Mexico tomorrow (Wednesday) campaigning for Yvette Herrell who is seeking to take back her Congressional seat.
To receive the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium newsletter, email habeaumont@aol.com or check out http://www.trinitydownwinders.com. To assist TBDC, send checks to TBDC c/o Tina Cordova, 7518 2nd Street NW, Albuquerque, NM 87107.
Dr. Arlene Brown, far left, Bernice Gutierrez and Dr. Myrriah Gomez Saturday evening. Photo by Maire O’Neill/losalamosreporter.com
Lois Lipman holds a gift she received from Los Alamos artist Margarita Ryan. Photo by Maire O’Neill/losalamosreporter.com
Sen. Leo Jaramillo, left, addresses attendees at Saturday evening’s event as SALA owner Allan Saenz looks on. Photo by Maire O’Neill/losalamosreporter.com
Lois Lipman, producer of ‘First We Bombed Los Alamos’, far right, with Tina Cordova and Dr. Arlene Brown during a Q&A session following the screening. Photo by Maire O’Neill/losalamosreporter.com
Tina Cordova, left. and Lois Lipman at the Oppenheimer Festival Saturday evening at SALA. Photo by Maire O’Neill/losalamosreporter.com
SALA owner Allan Saenz, far left, joins members of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium who traveled to Los Alamos for the screening of ‘First We Bombed New Mexico’, from left, Saenz, Toby Gutierrez, Lois Lipman, Bernice Gutierrez, Tina Cordova, Paul Pino, Arlene Juanico, Larry Juanico and Todd Waldron. Photo by Maire O’Neill/losalamosreporter.com