“We come here to remember those people (who died) so that they’re never forgotten,” Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium co-founder and Director Tina Cordova said.
“We just want to thank the people who have continued to support us and hope that more and more people will get involved with us. We always want to thank the people that have supported us throughout the years… We’re just going to keep fighting the fight.”
Nicole Maxwell, Alamogordo Daily News | July 19, 2022 alamogordonews.com
Luminarias filled the Tularosa Little League baseball field Saturday, July 16 to commemorate the more than 800 people whose deaths were attributed to radiation exposure believed to result from atomic bomb tests at the Trinity Site near Alamogordo.
The tests that began on July 16,1945 and for decades were blamed for widespread cancers and other diseases among nearby residents.
To mark the 77th anniversary of the Trinity atomic bomb tests, the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium held its annual candlelight vigil at the Tularosa Little League baseball field.
“We come here to remember those people (who died) so that they’re never forgotten,” Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium co-founder and Director Tina Cordova said. “We just want to thank the people who have continued to support us and hope that more and more people will get involved with us. We always want to thank the people that have supported us throughout the years… We’re just going to keep fighting the fight.”
The vigil was dedicated to Henry Herrera who died in January at 87. Herrera witnessed the Trinity blast when he was 11 years old.
“He was one of our founding members,” Cordova said. “For years, his history had been documented by journalists from all over the world.”
Herrera was one of about 800 people who died from the aftermath of the Trinity Test in the Tularosa area.
“It’s an enormous number. In a small town like this of 3,000 people, that’s an enormous number,” Cordova said.
The vigil included an update on the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, or RECA, which was extended past its initial sunset date of July 10, 2022 yet still does not include the Tularosa Basin Downwinders or downwind communities in New Mexico.
In order to expand RECA to include the Tularosa Basin Downwinders and other downwinders currently excluded from RECA, 60 votes are needed to reach cloture in the U.S. Senate.
There are 54 Senators who have agreed to the expansion, Cordova said.
The RECA expansion is also in need of a score from the Congressional Budget Office before it can go in front of the Senate.
Cordova said that she and the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium are working to get the Congressional Budget Office score and to get the six more votes needed to pass the RECA expansion.