This date has been designated as a National Day of Remembrance for the Nevada Test Site (NTS) Downwinders.  

While it is an honorable and just thing to commemorate the NTS Downwinders, there are other Downwinders in the United States who have not received this acknowledgement or recognition. The New Mexico residents who lived downwind of the Trinity Test at the White Sands Missile Range on July 16, 1945, were the first people anywhere in the world to be exposed to radiation as a result of the testing of the atomic bomb. Yet, 75 years later these New Mexican’s have yet to be acknowledged nor have they received any compensation as the Downwinders of the NTS have.

The compensation the NTS Downwinders receive is justifiable but to omit New Mexicans is not. Historical documents and maps indicate that the entire state of New Mexico also received radiation fallout from the NTS; thus, New Mexicans have received a cumulative dose of radiation starting with the Trinity test and continuing through the testing at the Nevada test site.

Tina Cordova, co-founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium (TBDC), has been advocating for equal compensation for New Mexicans that NTS Ddownwinders have received since 1990. Tina states “It’s time to recognize the Unsung Patriots who were unknowing, unwilling, uncompensated, innocent participants in the world’s largest science experiment. People in New Mexico have been suffering in silence ever since the bomb was detonated in July 1945. It’s time we reveal the rest of the story and people are made aware of the complete legacy of Trinity.”   

For more information please contact Tina Cordova at (505)897-6787 or tcordova@queston.net, or www.trinitydownwinders.com.