(September 16, 2024) — Beginning September 22, more than 50 members of the Navajo Nation, Laguna Pueblo, Acoma Pueblo and Hopi tribe will drive roughly 30 hours by bus from New Mexico to Washington, D.C., to demand House Speaker Mike Johnson allow a vote on legislation that would aid victims of U.S. nuclear tests, uranium mining and nuclear waste storage. The group, from New Mexico and Arizona, includes former uranium workers, veterans, and people who lived downwind of nuclear weapons tests who are suffering from radiation-related illnesses, such as thyroid cancer and lung disease.
The group will depart at 9 a.m. MT on September 22 following a send-off rally with community members at the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico. They are funding the cross-country trip through a combination of online crowdfunding and local events, including organizing bingo nights and selling burgers and other food at feast days across New Mexico.
“So many in my family have suffered from radiation-related cancers,” said Maggie Billiman, one of the trip’s organizers, a downwinder and member of the Navajo Nation. “My father, a Navajo Code Talker in World War II and a downwinder, died from stomach cancer. As he was dying, he asked me to research cancer care, to try and help him, because it was so hard to get care. I couldn’t deliver that to my father, I couldn’t save him. But I want to try and deliver that help to my family, to my people, to the Navajo Nation. That’s what I’m fighting for.”
In D.C., they will gather on the Capitol lawn September 24 to 26 to sing, dance, pray and call for the passage of legislation reauthorizing the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA). The bill, which would provide health screenings and financial assistance to those sickened by exposure to radiation by the U.S. nuclear weapons program, has sat on Speaker Johnson’s desk since March, when it was passed by a bipartisan supermajority in the Senate.
“My late father, Phillip Harrison, Sr., died from lung cancer at the age of 44. He was one of the early miners, along with my uncles, and hundreds more who went to work in the uranium mines,” said Phil Harrison, a former underground uranium miner and remediation worker, and trip organizer. “The miners were unknowingly exposed to excessive radiation and toxic chemicals – they were never warned. I’ve been fighting to establish and improve RECA since the 1990s through the Navajo Uranium Victims Committee.”
Indigenous communities in the southwest were on frontlines of both testing and mining and now suffer from alarming rates of illnesses linked to radiation. Mining for uranium for U.S. nuclear weapons took place largely in the western and southwestern United States, often on tribal land, and many of the workers were Indigenous. Workers were not told of the deadly risks of working in the mines, even as the government was studying them to evaluate the effects of radiation exposure. Safety information was often available only in English and translations into Native languages were generally not made available. Decades later, a quarter of Navajo women screened had “high levels of radioactive metal in their systems” and some tribal communities’ water sources and land remain contaminated with dangerous materials from mining activities.
“I live about 15 miles from the Paguate Jackpile Uranium Mine, which was at one time the largest open pit mine in the world,” said Loretta Anderson, who helped organize the trip. “My mother and father, Velma and Sam Anderson, worked at the mines and were both diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis. My father died of cancer on May 5, 2020. Two years later we lost my mother. Many of my people are sick, suffering, and dying due to radiation exposure. I will continue to fight to get the RECA Bill passed.”
Anderson, Billiman and Harrison are available to speak with reporters about the trip and the need to extend and expand RECA. To speak with them, please contact Kyle Ann Sebastian via email at ksebastian@ucsusa.org or by phone at 773-941-7919.