Dozens of protesters showed up at the Trinity Nuclear Test site near San Antonio during the period that it’s open to the public. The protesters advocated for federal compensation to people who claim health problems came from nuclear fallout caused by the Trinity Test.
The first-ever nuclear explosion happened east of San Antonio, New Mexico in 1945. While the federal government says that the area was barren, activists say that the ensuing fallout from the blast was detrimental to many southern New Mexican communities.
Tina Cordova is the founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium. She said her family lived in Southern New Mexico at the time of the first nuclear explosion.
“I’m the fourth generation in my family to have cancer in my family since 1945. And now we have a fifth generation in my family," she said. "I have a 23-year-old niece, and in November, she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. The same cancer I have.”
As of now, the Radiation Exposure Compensation act does not cover individuals around the Trinity Site.
