ST. GEORGE, Utah — The weather station behind Desert Hills High School isn't typical, as it includes a radiation detector that was installed by the government. It's a reminder of the nuclear test fallout that fell in the area when the nuclear age began 70 years ago.
Even today, downwinders say they're still paying the price.
"I was out in the yard with my brother, and I thought it was a flying saucer, ran to the house to tell my mother, and by the time we came outside, it was dissipated into a cloud; affected my whole family's life," recalled St. George downwinder Claudia Peterson.
Peterson lost sisters, parents, aunts and children because of cancer that she says came from the fallout.
As part of President Donald Trump's so-called “Big Beautiful Bill,” the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act was revived after dying a year ago. It compensates people and their families who dealt with illnesses from the government's atomic testing and mining.
'Downwinders' want Utah leaders to help those made ill by nuclear tests:
The high school radiation detector still records gamma radiation every hour. On Wednesday, it recorded about an average of 13 microroentgens every hour. That’s a little above average, but according to scientists, less than what would be recorded in Colorado and New England from natural granite radiation.
Downwinders advocate Steve Erickson says the reviving of RECA is a reminder that the tests still radiate health problems across generations.
"It's been 80 years ago today that the first nuclear explosion took place at the Trinity site," explained Erickson. "But it's important that the government recognize when it has wronged its citizens and lied to them over decades."
And so it's a way to justice.
The revival of RECA included an expansion to cover the entire state beyond southern Utah. Salt Lake City native Mary Dickson lost her thyroid in her 20s to cancer.
"Take a lesson and pay heed to the stories of those of us who have paid the price of the Cold War arms race," said Mary Dickson, a Salt Lake City downwinder who lost her thyroid to cancer while in her 20s.
Peterson tells northern Utah downwinders who are applying for compensation for the first time not to be afraid of the process and look deep into their family histories, as compensation is retroactive. But it's the next generation that Claudia worries about.
"I didn't want to fight for this bill to have to be re-upped," she explained. "My fight was going to be for the second and third generations that were coming up, because that is where the true need is going to be."
