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WHAT 'OPPENHEIMER' LEFT OUT: THE ATOMIC BOMB'S FALLOUT IN NEW MEXICO
By Nate Hegyi
Published July 23, 2023 at 8:03 AM EDT
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Listen • 3:52
AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
The physicist behind the creation of the atomic bomb is getting a lot of
attention because of that big new Hollywood biopic, "Oppenheimer."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "OPPENHEIMER")
KENNETH BRANAGH: (As Niels Bohr) You're the man who gave them the power to
destroy themselves, and the world is not prepared.
RASCOE: Amid all this publicity, those who live near where the bomb was tested
back in 1945 in New Mexico are fighting to be heard. They were harmed by
radiation but have never been compensated. Nate Hegyi from the public radio
podcast Outside/In reports.
NATE HEGYI, BYLINE: Paul Pino grew up on his family's ranch near Carrizozo, N.M.
He came from tough stock. His dad was struck by lightning. His mom and brothers
10 miles a day herding cattle.
PAUL PINO: And for some of them, nothing could kill them but radiation.
HEGYI: Radiation that fell from the Trinity test. That was the codename for
when, about 40 miles from here, J. Robert Oppenheimer and his team of scientists
tested the world's first atomic bomb. The resulting explosion created a plume so
big that it spread radioactive ash more than a hundred miles away, including on
Carrizozo.
PINO: Some people thought it was the end of the world, and they started praying
like crazy, you know, to Santa Rita or whoever 'cause they thought, the sun's
coming up on the wrong side of the world.
HEGYI: The project was top secret. The federal government told locals at the
time that it was just an ammo dump explosion, that there was no danger. But the
resulting fallout from the Trinity test burned the hair off cattle and covered
the land in white dust. As late as the 1980s, government studies showed that
people living in the fallout zone were exposed to unsafe levels of radiation.
Hundreds in the area have since been diagnosed with radiogenic cancers,
including Pino's older brother and his mom. She died from bone cancer. Pino says
it was incredibly painful.
PINO: Like, if you were on the rack and getting stretched or those medieval
things they used to do to torture people - she went through that, like, every
day because of cancer.
TINA CORDOVA: When are we going to hold our government accountable for testing a
nuclear device in our backyard?
HEGYI: That's Tina Cordova. Like Pino, she grew up downwind of the Trinity test
and is leading an effort to get the federal government to provide restitution
for cancer patients and their families there. She wants Congress to do that by
amending the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act. It was established in 1990 to
provide a $50,000 payment to radiogenic cancer patients who lived downwind of
nuclear tests. But right now, it only covers a few counties in the southwest
that were exposed to fallout from other tests in Nevada in the 1950s and '60s.
CORDOVA: How is it that we were left out when we were the very first people
exposed to radiation as a result of an atomic bomb?
HEGYI: Cordova wants the act greatly expanded to include not only victims of the
Trinity test but cancer patients in other states in U.S. territories as well who
were exposed to fallout from nuclear explosions between 1944 and 1962.
CORDOVA: The bottom line is American citizens, human beings in the American
West, including New Mexico, were horribly harmed because of our government's
pursuit of nuclear superiority. And those American citizens need to be
acknowledged and taken care of.
HEGYI: Cordova has the ear of New Mexico Democratic Senator Ben Ray Lujan. He
has repeatedly introduced legislation in Congress that would amend the act, but
it never passes.
BEN RAY LUJAN: Many of my colleagues that do not support these efforts say that
it's - it costs too much money.
HEGYI: The government estimates the amendment would cost about $5 billion a
year. But proponents point out that the U.S. spends nearly 10 times that
maintaining its nuclear arsenal. Lujan pushes back on critics of the amendment.
LUJAN: What I'll tell them is, go look at our constituents in the eyes and tell
them that their lives or their parent's lives or kid's lives don't matter and
that it's too expensive to care for them.
HEGYI: The latest iteration of the bill was introduced in the Senate in May. For
NPR News, I'm Nate Hegyi in Carrizozo, N.M. Transcript provided by NPR,
Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text
may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future.
Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s
programming is the audio record.
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Nate Hegyi
Nate is UM School of Journalism reporter. He reads the news on Montana Public
Radio three nights a week.
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