July 17th marks the 76th anniversary of the world’s first nuclear explosion test of the “Gadget,” a plutonium device detonated on the desert plains of the Alamogordo Bombing Range, known as the Jornada del Muerto. Robert Oppenheimer dubbed the test “Trinity,” and on that day at precisely 5:30 in the early morning hours, the Gadget released 18.6 kilotons of energy, instantly vaporizing the tower from which it was suspended, and transforming the surrounding asphalt and desert sand into a sea of green glass. Seconds after the detonation came an enormous blast that sent searing heat across the desert and knocking observers to the ground. The US military dubbed the Trinity test a success, but its development did not come without the tragic loss of lives in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nor without damaging health effects to residents of New Mexico who lived nearby the test site.
In 1945, several families and individuals lived within a 50-mile radius of the blast, and many of the small communities where these families lived had no running water and made a living by farming and ranching. Most water sources at the time consisted of cisterns, water catchments, water ditches, and holding ponds. Offsite fallout was heavy, contaminating water sources and crops. Several ranch families (who were missed by the pre-test population Army survey), received significant exposure in the two weeks following Trinity, and their livestock suffered skin burns, bleeding, and loss of hair. At that time Stafford Warren, the Manhattan District’s chief medical officer, reported to General Leslie Groves (who was in charge of the Manhatten Project) that “while no house area investigated received a dangerous amount, the dust outfall from the various portions of the cloud was potentially a very dangerous hazard over a band almost 30 miles wide extending almost 90 miles northeast of the site.” Warren suggested that the Army find larger sites in the future, “preferably with a radius of at least 150 miles without population.”
I remember learning about the Manhatten Project and the Trinity site in High School, but I had never learned about the impact it made on the many families and residents who lived near the Alamagordo Bombing Range. According to The Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium (TBDC), a non-profit organization that is seeking justice for uncompensated victims and their families of the Trinity blast, infant mortality rates spiked in the months following the test, and residents suffered increased rates of cancer. The TBDC states that the National average death rate after 1945 was 38.3 deaths per thousand live births, and the average rate in New Mexico was 100.8 deaths per thousand; the highest in the nation at the time. This is corroborated by other studies that found a sharp rise (34%) in infant deaths in the years following the explosion.
A recent study in 2020 by the National Cancer Institute found that as many as 1,000 New Mexicans living in communities near the Trinity Site might have developed cancer from the radioactive fallout. The institute’s findings were based on a six-year study that involved computer modeling, researching historical data, and interviewing 210 elderly “downwinders” who lived close enough to the blast to suffer internal radiation exposure by ingesting contaminated food items. According to the study, the fallout plume generated by the blast moved northeast, creating the biggest radiation exposures in Guadalupe and Torrance counties, but also affected San Miguel, Lincoln, and Socorro counties. Although the study did find a connection between cancer rates and the radioactive plume, some have criticized the study because it stated that there was no clear evidence that radiation caused genetic abnormalities or higher infant mortality rates (which contradicts the data on significantly higher infant mortality rates mentioned above).
It wasn’t until 2006 when the US Department of Energy concluded that “the Trinity test also posed the most significant hazard of the entire Manhattan Project.” In 2010 the US Centers for Disease Control also concluded that: “New Mexico residents were neither warned before the 1945 Trinity blast, informed of health hazards afterward, nor evacuated before, during, or after the test. Exposure rates in public areas from the world’s first nuclear explosion were measured at levels 10,000- times higher than currently allowed.”
Since 1990 the US Government has been compensating “Downwinders” who lived adjacent to the Nevada Test Site. The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) was set up to extend compensation and medical care to those families and individuals affected by radioactive fallout in Nevada, Utah, and parts of Arizona, but this piece of legislation does not extend to New Mexicans. As the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium points out, affected New Mexico residents have never been included or compensated, and they were also downwind of the Nevada test site through the summer of 1962. The Consortium is advocating for the same compensation that other Downwinders have received and that health care coverage to be extended to all Downwinders.
In the 76 years since then, residents have been fighting for recognition from the government, pointing out that several generations have been dealing with the effects of the blast. Last year, Rep. Angelica Rubio, D-Las Cruces, introduced House Memorial 5, which asked Congress to add New Mexico to the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA). This would include the downwinders in New Mexico in the federal compensation program for people exposed to radiation tests as well as employees exposed to mining uranium. U.S. Rep. Ben Ray Luján is a sponsor of the legislation, and last August he organized a meeting with former miners, lawmakers, and survivor groups from New Mexico, Idaho, and Guam, and other states and locations where nuclear tests were conducted. Rep. Luján stated that “If you listen to the stories of downwinders, it’s clear that the Trinity Test unleashed a lifetime of illness and suffering for many New Mexico families.”
As we mark the 76th anniversary of the detonation of the “Gadget,” it’s important to also remember those individuals and families who were adversely affected by the radioactive fallout, and to do our duty to recognize and compensate them for their suffering.