Greetings,
We’re writing to encourage your ongoing action, through marking Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Trinity Day this summer. This particular email is about July 16: the date of the Trinity Test in 1945, when the first nuclear weapon was exploded in the USA state of New Mexico, and the date of the Church Rock uranium tailings spill in 1979, when 1,100 tons of radioactive detritus and 93 million gallons of uranium processing waste crashed out of a broken uranium tailings dam. Wherever you are in the U.S., we hope you’ll commemorate this important day in nuclear and national history.
Some action ideas include:
Contact your congressional members and ask them to support bills expanding the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, or better yet, organize a call-in day or letter writing party
Organize a candlelight vigil in solidarity with the Red Water Pond Road Community Association and the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium who are having local events that day.
TBDC c/o Tina Cordova
7518 2nd St. NW
Albuquerque, New Mexico 87107
Tina Cordova, co-founder of the TBDC, describes how, “The [Trinity] explosion produced more heat than the sun, and caused radioactive ash to fall for days – covering and contaminating crops, homes, bodies, and water supplies. We were innocent children, women, and men who were left to deal with the horrid consequences of being overexposed to radioactive fallout. Our families suffer from cancer, radiation-related illnesses, and early death. The people of New Mexico have been waiting over 77 years. We have never been acknowledged although we were the original Downwinders, the first people to be exposed to a nuclear bomb and nuclear fallout anyplace in the world. We have been casualties of the U.S. government’s quest for nuclear superiority. There is so much more to the history than what the U.S. government has been willing to share, and we were the human sacrifice.”
Thank you for your consideration, and for working for nuclear abolition, peace, and justice,
