Thursday, March 7, 2024 | 2 a.m.
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Between 1951 and 1963, when an international treaty banning above-ground nuclear tests was signed, 100 atmospheric nuclear tests were conducted at the Nevada Test Site, about 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Every few months, a brilliant flash lit up the pre-dawn sky, followed by a mushroom cloud rising up from the desert floor.
My family moved to Las Vegas in ’55 and enjoyed an unobstructed view of the atomic blasts from our front yard. Like most Southern Nevadans, we were proud to be on the front lines of the Cold War, testing ever more potent nuclear weapons to deter Soviet nuclear aggression. The U.S. government assured us again and again that fallout from the tests was minimal and posed no health risk. We believed what we were told; we drank the Kool-Aid. We also drank the milk from nearby dairies where cows grazed on irradiated land and produced contaminated milk.
Then people started getting sick. Cancer rates were on the rise, as were other health conditions. At age 9, I developed an autoimmune disorder that affected my kidneys throughout adolescence and early adulthood, nearly taking my life on two occasions. It never occurred to anyone that the exposure to radiation might have played a role. Years later, my father found blood in his urine; six months later, he was dead of bladder cancer.
By then, the federal government had adopted the position that it could not be held responsible for people getting sick and dying. When a judge ruled in favor of more than 1,000 downwinders, finding that the U.S. government was negligent in warning and protecting its people from the risks of radiation, the government was able to overturn the ruling.
In the face of this miscarriage of justice — and to prevent future lawsuits — Congress passed the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) in 1990. Under this statute, people who lost family members to certain types of cancer during the above-ground testing era or became ill themselves could apply for compensation. I only learned about RECA a few years ago. The application process seemed designed for people to fail. For example, death and birth certificates for family members had to be originals, with raised seals. It was only by a fluke that I found those documents among our family papers. I sent in my application. Six months later, I got a call from the Justice Department. Every box had been checked save one: We had lived in Clark County, most of which was not covered by RECA. My application was rejected. It seemed utterly absurd, the notion that radiation reached the Clark County border and went around the outskirts. On a map of counties covered by RECA, Clark County is an island surrounded by covered areas.
In retrospect, this callous cartography seems like a cynical attempt by the government to reduce costs by excluding the majority of Las Vegas residents from eligibility, including nearly all of the Black population. Due to segregation and discriminatory housing practices in the 1950s and ’60s, most Black people lived on the west side of town. Lacking equal access to health care, they undoubtedly suffered a disproportionate rate of illness and deaths due to radiation exposure. Those who sought redress under RECA would have been denied — the map excluded them.
Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle have crafted amendments to the original RECA program that would expand the covered area to include Clark County, as well as other excluded areas, and increase the amount of compensation, which was set in 1990 and is barely enough to cover one round of chemotherapy.
Well, tick, tock, ladies and gentlemen. In a few months, the original RECA statute will expire. People like me who were rejected under the old statute, along with those who never got the chance to apply, will be denied compensation. It is an outrage that a handful of politicians with nothing at stake have the power to deny thousands of people their just compensation. Have they no shame? Think of that 9-year-old girl and her father and all the others whose health was compromised or whose lives were prematurely ended due to radiation exposure. Honor their sacrifice. Make good on the government’s obligation to compensate them. Act now to protect and improve RECA to include Clark County and other previously excluded areas — before it’s too late.
Linda Chase is an author and local historian who grew up in the Bonanza Village neighborhood of Las Vegas’ Historic Westside.
