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The State of the Union: Downwinders Edition (Part II)
Led by Tona Henderson, the Idaho Downwinders have spent two decades advocating for federal recognition and compensation for those affected by nuclear testing.
BY MICAH DREW
Tona Henderson was in the U.S. Senate gallery when a bill expanding benefits to radiation victims passed with bipartisan support. She, and other members of the Idaho Downwinders, were instructed to make no noise.
They weren’t allowed to take photos. Their phones had been taken from them upon entering the gallery overlooking the U.S. Senate chambers, and even writing down the vote tally on a piece of paper earned a sharp rebuke from the Senate staffer who oversees the gallery.
The gallery visitors were entirely comprised of members of myriad Downwinders groups from across the country, activists who have spent decades fighting for the federal government to recognize the extent of the damage caused by nuclear fallout from the United States’ above ground nuclear testing in the 1950s and 1960s.
“I still get chills thinking about it,” said Emmett City Councilor Tona Henderson, founder and director of the Idaho Downwinders. “We couldn’t believe it was happening and we were watching it unfold.”
The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA), passed in 1990, recognized the impacts of radioactive fallout on individuals living in 21 counties spread across Nevada, Utah, and Arizona during the height of testing, commonly called “Downwinders,” and provided $50,000 in compensation. RECA also compensates Uranium mine workers in 11 states, including Idaho. However, RECA fails to recognize dozens of counties across Idaho, Montana, Colorado, New Mexico, and Guam, where some of the highest concentrations of the radioactive isotope Iodine-131 were measured following the tests. The Downwinders activists, including Henderson’s Idaho Downwinders who have a strong presence in Emmett (one of the top five contaminated counties), are seeking to expand those benefits to all affected counties and extend the existing law, currently set to sunset in June. Three U.S. Senators—Josh Hawley (R-MO), Mike Crapo (R-ID), and Ben Lujan (D-NM)—have been the primary proponents of RECA legislation during the current Congress. Crapo has been behind several similar bills in the past, but none have made it through the political body.
Henderson said the Downwinders in the gallery knew they likely had the support of all Democrats (two ended up voting against the bill) and both of Idaho and Missouri’s Republican senators, but needed a dozen more to reach a 61-vote threshold.
One by one, each senator walked up to the front of the Senate chambers and spoke with or shook the hand of the three primary sponsors who had each given impassioned remarks on the importance of the bill. Without a live tally, and without being able to identify the party affiliation of each senator, the onlookers could only wait and hope their mental calculations were holding up. The final tally was 69-30. “All of a sudden, we hit the overall number we needed and everybody just started sobbing,” Henderson said. “When we stepped out into the hallway you could hear the triumph and ‘Hallelujahs’ just echoing up and down the chambers. I couldn’t think of a single thing to say to a reporter at that moment. I was just speechless.” The effort to expand RECA gained new momentum in the last year with the support of Sen. Hawley, a vocal member of the GOP whose district includes St. Louis. The vote to expand RECA wasn’t on the schedule when Henderson ew to D.C. in early March. She was there, instead, to attend the State of the Union address as the guest of Sen. Crapo.
Henderson has been to Washington D.C. with her counterparts from other Downwinder groups multiple times in the two decades she’s been on the crusade to expand RECA. Since the first rally she helped host in Emmett in 2004, she’s testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee and met with Senate majority leaders and Speakers of the House. But even with bipartisan support in the Senate, and a statement indicating President Joe Biden’s agreement to sign a bill if it arrives on his desk, progress has been slow.
In 2023, the Senate passed an expansion of RECA as an amendment to the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, the nearly $900 billion spending bill that covers the defense and energy departments. The amendment passed the Senate 61-37, but was stripped out of the final bill in negotiations with the House of Representatives in December just before the final vote.
During and after the Manhattan Project, radioactive waste from a refinery in St. Louis was dumped in a nearby landfill where it contaminated a local creek, around which was subsequently developed into subdivisions.
Sen. Hawley has committed to passing the RECA expansion, which also expands benefits to Missouri residents, by any means. The standalone vote on the bill in March, a rarity in congress, was successful, but if it doesn’t work its way through the House, Sen. Hawley stated an intent to add it as an amendment to as many bills as possible.
“I am not going to sit back and watch [RECA] expire. We’ve got to get it reauthorized. We’ve got to get it updated,” Sen. Hawley said in a statement earlier this year.
With the release of the Oscar-winning blockbuster “Oppenheimer,” a dramatic retelling of the scientists who worked on the original Trinity test, there has been a renewed and broadened interest in the effects of the early nuclear age. Henderson said that anything that offers an extra opportunity to bring the issue up in conversation is beneficial, especially when most people are oblivious to the extent of the damage.
Henderson has cataloged 1,140 individuals living in Gem County, a non-RECA covered county, who have died from or received treatment for advanced forms of cancer linked to radiation exposure. A 2023 study from Princeton University sought to quantify the nuclear fallout from the testing, which the federal government significantly underestimated in the early days.
“The extent to which America nuked itself is not completely appreciated still, to this day, by most Americans,” said Nuclear Historian Alex Wellerstein in a New York Times article about the study.
The vote to expand RECA wasn’t on the schedule when Henderson ew to D.C. in early March. She was there, instead, to attend the State of the Union address as the guest of Sen. Crapo.
“Tona has been a tireless advocate for Idaho Downwinders and our work in Congress to ensure all victims of Cold War era above ground weapons testing receive the compensation they rightfully deserve,” Sen. Crapo said. “Her engagement has been critical in telling the true, personal stories of Idahoans who have suffered without recompense.”
Henderson said that being able to hear the State of the Union in person was one of the greatest experiences she’s had, and yet it paled behind witnessing a vote that brings her life’s work one step closer to fruition.
“It hasn’t gone the way I thought it would when I started this 20 years ago,” she said. “I was foolish thinking this would be a quick, obvious fix in the Senate but every time the bill comes up we’re getting closer.”
“I’m really hopeful,” she continued. “I told everyone when we left the Senate gallery, we don’t use the word ‘if’ anymore. It’s not if it’s going to pass. It’s when it will pass.”
This is the second part of a series on the Idaho Downwinders, the effects of nuclear fallout on Idahoans, and the push for federal recognition for victims. The first part ran in the March issue of IdaHome, and a third part is expected when RECA passes.
