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Started in 2005, the Tularosa Basin Downwinders began to compile data on the cancers and other detrimental effects that have affected the residents surrounding the Trinity site. Ms. Tina Cordova has been invited to Congress to address the concerns of these resident's and is seeking compensation to assist with healthcare and it's associated costs.

The Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium (TDBC) is a grassroots organization that was founded in 2005. Our purpose is to bring attention to the negative health effects suffered by the people living adjacent to the Trinity test site subsequent to their overexposure to high levels of ionizing radiation that occurred after the atomic bomb test at the Trinity Site on July 16, 1945. For more information about our organization, please go to: http://www.trinitydownwinders.com

DID YOU KNOW?

1. There were families living as close as 12 miles to the Trinity test site in 1945 and there were thousands of families, children, women and men living in a 50 mile radius. We now know as a matter of fact that there were close to 500,000 people living within a 150 mile radius to the site. The Site is often described as remote and uninhabited but obviously this is not true.
2. The bomb was a plutonium based bomb and it was packed with 13 pounds of weapons grade plutonium but only 3 pounds of the plutonium fissioned. The remaining 10 pounds of plutonium was joined with the soil, sand, animal and plant life and incinerated. The resultant fireball exceeded the atmosphere and penetrated the stratosphere traveling more than 7 miles high.
3. Plutonium has a half life of more than 24,000 years or 7000 generations. Once the radioactive ash fell from the sky as fallout it settled on everything - on the soil, in the water and on the skin of every living thing both human and animal.
4. In 1945 most if not all the small villages adjacent to the Trinity Site had no running water. The water sources at the time were cisterns, holding ponds or ditches. Asa result of the fallout, the water sources were highly contaminated.
5. In 1945 there were no grocery stores in the small villages surrounding the Trinity site. All the meat, dairy and produce people consumed was either raised, harvested or grown by them. It too was contaminated.
6. Since 1990 the US Government has been compensating "Downwinders" who lived close to the Nevada Test Site. The fund set up to pay partial restitution and medical care is called the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA). The Downwinders in New Mexico have never been included or paid restitution although they were the first people to be exposed to radiation any place in the world.
7. The fund has paid out more than 2.5 billion dollars in claims and provided much needed health care coverage to some that quality.
8. The TBDC is fighting for the same partial restitution and health care coverage.
9. On June 27, 2018, the TBDC testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee about the need to amend RECA in order to compensate the New Mexico Downwinders. The testimony is available at: https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/meetings/examining-the-eligibility-requirements-for-the-radiation-exposure-compensation-program-to-ensure-all-downwinders-receive-coverage. The hearing begins at 20 minutes. Tina Cordova, co-founder of TBDC, begins her testimony at 1:02:20 minutes.
10. The TBDC is working to make certain the amendments to RECA introduced in both the U.S. House and Senate will move out of the committees and onto the floor of both the House and Senate for a vote. Call or email your US House and Senate members and ask them to support the amendments to the RECA that are found in House bill HR 4426 and Senate bill  S 1751. These amendments have broad bipartisan support. 

www.house-gov/representatives/find-your-representative 

www.senate.gov/senators