On June 7, 2022, President Joe Biden signed into law the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) Extension Act of 2022. This act extends federal assistance for two years to “Downwinders”—residents of northern Arizona, southern Utah, and southern Nevada who were exposed to radiation carried by wind from nuclear testing at the Nevada Testing Site between
On July 9, 2022, the federal Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) will be coming to an end. This act, passed by Congress in 1990, provided for compensation to “Downwinders,” residents of northern Arizona, southern Utah, and southern Nevada who were exposed to radiation carried by wind from nuclear testing at the Nevada Testing Site between
Photo: Jean Bishop, a Mohave County supervisor, shows a map of the radiation-exposed areas Standing on the front porch of their home south of Las Vegas, Jean Bishop’s family peered up as a mushroom cloud towered in the distance and dust choked the sky. It was an exciting, awe-inspiring sight, and one that stirred their
Federal law has long compensated residents who lived downwind from open-air nuclear test sites in the 1950s and 1960s, including many in northern Arizona – but not residents in most of Mohave County. County Supervisor Jean Bishop, who has seen her family and neighbors racked by cancers, told a House committee Wednesday that this is