Speak out for radiation victims

On March 7, the U.S. Senate passed the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act Reauthorization as a bipartisan bill. Enacted in 1990 and later amended in 2000, the act has served as a crucial mechanism for providing one-time restitution to the veterans and the communities that bore the brunt of contamination from the United States’ uranium industry and nuclear weapons program — contamination that has deeply scarred the Navajo Nation with a lasting health and ecological catastrophe. One such Navajo community is right next to the Northeast Church Rock mine open-air radioactive waste pile, a Superfund site on the National Priority List that has not been touched since the designation over 45 years ago by the Environmental Protection Agency. The Red Water Pond Road Community is living testament to the failure of U.S. government, insane corporate greed and abandonment without accountability, and utter neglect by the very local lawmakers who are complicit with their decadeslong silence and inaction.

The comprehensive provisions in the bill — U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján is one of three co-sponsors — include post-1971 uranium workers and core drillers and the extension of the act until 2040. The legislation also acknowledges renal cancer as a compensable disease, permits the amalgamation of work histories, delineates the expansion of eligibility regions for downwind exposure and enhances compensation for claimants — including downwinders — affected by atmospheric testing. Now, this legislation needs to pass the House. Speak to your representative and ask Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to put this legislation to a vote. RECA expires in July.

Mervyn Tilden Kinlitsoh Sinili, Church Rock