On Monday, July 13, 2020, Tina Cordova, a founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, and Joni Arends, Director of Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety, shared their struggles to get compensation and health care for victims of the July 16, 1945, Trinity A-bomb test in Alamogordo, New Mexico, and discussed the radioactive waste disposal problems faced by New Mexicans.
This webinar was hosted by Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, US Section, Disarm Committee, and by Vermont Physicians for Social Responsibility and the Vermont International Film Festival. Robin Lloyd of WILPF US and John Reuwer of Vermont PSR and VTIFF.org were moderators.
[Here is the link to the list of upcoming films in the Vermont International Film Festival between July 13 and August 9, 2020. The first film, "The Moment In Time," is on YouTube, and was discussed on this webinar - https://vtiff.org/events/war-and-nuclear-weapons/]
Tina Cordova, a founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium (TBDC), and a cancer survivor. She will talk about the New Mexico downwinders' fruitless struggle (so far) to receive the compensation due to those exposed to radiation from atomic weapons testing and uranium mining under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA).
photo credit: Joshua Wheeler
Joni Arends is Co-founder and Executive Director of Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety (CCNS) in Santa Fe, New Mexico,. Since 1988, she has been a leading voice against the nuclear weapons industry in New Mexico, including Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). http://nuclearactive.org/
photo credit: Julia Goldberg
Please visit our timeline entry for July 16 for a more extensive discussion of the Trinity bomb. Also view the video The Moment in Time: The Manhattan Project (available for free on You Tube) which documents the development of nuclear weapons up to the Trinity explosion through recollections of those who worked on what was known as "the gadget."