Local News
Bill from Utahns in Congress could jeopardize expanded compensation for downwinders
For decades, downwinders have criticized the Radiation Compensation Exposure Act, or RECA, for being too narrow. Designed to compensate people exposed to and sickened by nuclear weapons development, activists say RECA has glaring cracks — for starters, it only covered 10 counties in Utah despite research suggesting the whole state was exposed to dangerous, cancer-causing levels of radiation during Cold War-era testing. And it excluded people who worked but didn’t reside in eligible counties, lived just across the eligible county line, or had kidney cancer, certain kinds of ...