NM aging department to incorporate public response into latest state plan
Public comment closes Friday on New Mexico's aging department's long-term plan, which outlines goals to address the state's growing senior population and their needs.
The Aging and Long-Term Services Department opened public comment in April for its draft plan, which includes three overarching goals: administering home and community programs to help seniors age in place and support caregivers; responding to social determinants of health such as food and housing insecurity, access to services and social support; and reducing instances of abuse, neglect and exploitation while preserving the autonomy of seniors.
The public comment period included a survey in which participants were asked to rank how they would prioritize the three goals, how well the plan addresses their needs and how successful they believe the plan will be, along with an opportunity to provide suggestions for improving the proposed plan.
'We have received meaningful feedback from across the state—including organizations, direct service providers, senior participants, and community members—and it's clear that New Mexicans care deeply about how we support our aging population,' ALTSD Deputy Cabinet Secretary Angelina Flores-Montoya told Source NM in a written statement.
She said the department will incorporate the feedback into the final plan, 'which will influence our work now and in the years to come.'
The draft plan was informed by a needs assessment conducted by the Center for Applied Research and Analysis at the University of New Mexico's Institute for Social Research. The department contracted with the center in fiscal year 2023 and released a report in September 2024 identifying six key findings and six recommendations.
Researchers gathered information from focus groups in five New Mexico communities, as well as surveys completed by service providers throughout the state. U.S. Census data and other state collected data were also used.
Findings included: New Mexico's aging population has 'grown significantly,' as have metrics of vulnerability such as poverty and disability; older adults and service providers describe service deserts without access to transportation and medical supportive services; providers note lack of funding, personnel and training are 'critical barriers;' and rural and urban areas differ in vulnerabilities.
The report suggested the aging department expand services to meet growing needs; plan for a growing aging population and expanded service requirements; improve public outreach; address workforce shortages; complete a statewide services inventory; and implement a statewide consumer survey. These findings are reflected in the current draft plan, which members of the public have had a chance to comment on.
According to the draft, the plan is set to go into effect in October 2024.
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USA Today
16-07-2025
- USA Today
80 years later, victims of ‘first atom bomb' will soon be eligible for reparations
More Americans are now eligible for compensation for health problems linked to radiation exposure from the atomic weapons program. A bright, blinding light flashed above New Mexico's Jornada del Muerto desert at 5:30 a.m. on July 16, 1945. The thunderous roar that followed jolted 14-year-old Jess Gililland awake on the porch of his family's ranch 27 miles away. Gililland didn't know it yet, but the U.S. Army had just detonated the world's first-ever nuclear weapon. In the hours and days after the blast, radioactive dust would begin to coat roofs, clotheslines, crops, animals and the ground near Gililland's family home. As the years passed, almost all his family members and neighbors became sick, often with rare forms of cancer. The federal government never warned them about the bomb test, never evacuated them after the blast, or advised them about the potential health consequences of nuclear fallout. Those who lived downwind of the atom bomb say they've never received much recognition – until now. Eight decades after the Manhattan Project's Trinity Test, generations of New Mexicans' who've suffered health problems from the nuclear fallout will soon be eligible to receive compensation. A measure in the recently enacted Republican tax bill expands the pool of Americans eligible for a program that compensates people who have health problems linked to radiation exposure from the atomic weapons program, including uranium miners and downwinders. The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, first passed in 1990, previously only applied to people in certain parts of Nevada, Utah and Arizona, but didn't include those who were potentially impacted by the Trinity Test in New Mexico, or living on Navajo lands in Arizona, among other areas. For people in New Mexico's Tularosa Basin, the money will make a world of difference, Gililland's 71-year-old daughter, Edna Kay Hinkle, said. 'The people around here, a lot of them are really poor. They couldn't afford gas to go to Las Cruces or Albuquerque (to get treatment),' said Hinkle, who has also battled multiple types of cancer. 'There's people that it means millions, multi-millions, to them.' The Trinity Test's secret fallout Scientists chose to conduct the Trinity Test at the Alamogordo Bombing Range for the area's relative seclusion and predictable winds, which they believed would limit the spread of radiation over populated areas, according to the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of History and Heritage. Army officers pinpointed where thousands of people lived within the 40-mile radius of the test site and prepared emergency evacuation plans. But they never used them. After the test, the military described the giant blast people saw as an accident involving ammunition and pyrotechnics. The federal government didn't reveal the real cause, even to those in the area who had watched the mushroom cloud, until a month later, when the nation dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. By then, those living near the test site had already ingested the radiated material. In a 2015 letter, a man named Henry Herrera, who was 11 years old at the time of Trinity, recounted watching a cloud of black ash fall across his town, including on the clothing his mother had hung outside to dry in the hours after the explosion. 'This filth landed all over our town (and) covered our village with radiation,' wrote Herrera, who passed away in 2022 at age 87. 'Our water was contaminated because all we had was rainwater from the cistern and ditch water. … Everything we consumed was filled with radiation.' The government publicly downplayed the potential consequences of the nuclear bomb test for people living in the Tularosa Basin, despite internal concerns. Five days after Trinity, physicist Stafford Warren wrote a letter to Army Gen. Leslie Groves explaining that high levels of radiation were found 'near a lot of houses.' Warren suggested future tests be conducted 150 miles away from any populated area. Hundreds of thousands of people lived within the 150-mile radius of Trinity. Years later, a health care provider named Kathryn Behnke wrote to Warren from Roswell, New Mexico, explaining that there were 'about 35 infant deaths' in the city in the month after the atomic test. Warren's medical assistant denied that there might be a connection to the testing in his response back to Behnke. But unpublished data from the New Mexico Health Department showed that infant deaths increased by 38% in 1945, compared with 1946, according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Radioactive fallout from the test had landed in high densities across New Mexico and Nevada. Fallout from the more than 100 other nuclear tests the government conducted in the years after reached 46 of the 48 contiguous states, along with Mexico and Canada, according to a 2023 study published by researchers at Princeton University and the University of Colorado Boulder. Thousands eligible for compensation The exact number of people eligible for nuclear-weapons-related radiation compensation across the nation remains unknown. But Tina Cordova, who cofounded the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, said she estimates upward of 10,000 people have had health impacts related to the Trinity Test. The village of Tularosa alone could generate 'thousands of claims out of a town that has consistently had a population of around 3,000,' Cordova said, noting that generations of people who've moved away still have lingering health problems. Thousands more across other states could be eligible, too. Between 1951 and 1958, the United States conducted 188 nuclear tests out West. At the military's Nevada Test Site, 65 miles north of Las Vegas, dozens of nuclear tests were conducted underground each year between 1963 and 1992, according to the Department of Defense. During roughly the same time frame, nearly 30 million tons of uranium ore were extracted from Navajo Nation lands to build nuclear weapons. An estimated 4,000 Navajo labored in more than 1,000 mines, Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren said. Others lived in close proximity. Today, hundreds of abandoned uranium mines remain on the tribe's land and may still be polluting water sources and exposing residents to harmful radiation, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Nygren called the expansion of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act a 'victory' for the Navajo. Much like Trinity downwinders, those living on tribe lands were for decades not eligible for compensation. The original act only included people in specific counties across Arizona, Nevada, and Utah who were present when the atomic testing took place and who developed specific types of cancer. The expansion passed in the Republican tax bill extends benefits to include all downwinders in Utah, New Mexico and Idaho, and more living in Nevada, Arizona, Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Alaska. Uranium miners in Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Wyoming, South Dakota, Washington, Utah, Idaho, North Dakota, Oregon and Texas will also be covered. Bernice Gutierrez, a downwinder who was born in Carrizozo, New Mexico, eight days before the Trinity Test, believes money from the program could be an 'economic boom' for communities that have long suffered from radiation-related health impacts. But she and other downwinders have said there is still more work to be done. The RECA reauthorization leaves out people in some parts of Nevada, Arizona, Montana, Colorado, Guam, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Washington state. The extension is also set to expire in two years, leaving concern that some won't be able to apply in time, Gutierrez said. 'Can you imagine 80 years worth of illness and death in New Mexico?' And we have a two-year time frame in which to gather all these applications?' said Gutierrez, who has more than 40 family members who've experienced what they believe to be radiation-related sicknesses. 'It just doesn't end for us' Downwinders are only eligible for compensation if they lived in one of the affected areas when tests were being conducted between 1945 and 1962. Otherwise, if an eligible person has already passed away, their families may be able to file a claim to receive up to $25,000. The National Cancer Institute in 2020 said it found no evidence transgenerational health effects occurred as a result of the test. The study also said there remain 'great uncertainty in the estimates of radiation doses and number of cancer cases possibly attributable to the test.' But Cordova and other downwinders believe the radiation from the blast mutated their ancestors' DNA, making their children and grandchildren more susceptible to cancers and other diseases. Five generations of Cordova's family have had cancer, dating back to 1955. Her 24-year-old niece was the latest to be diagnosed this year. 'It just doesn't end for us.' Cordova said. 'I always say we bury somebody, and someone else is diagnosed. And that is true and has been true in my family forever.' One of her cousins was diagnosed with a rare brain tumor several decades ago, and traveled around the country to find treatment. He died in October of compounding health problems. Two months later, Cordova said her brother was diagnosed with cancer. 'This is a legacy that we will carry forever. Our bodies bear the remnants of the Trinity bomb.'
Axios
10-07-2025
- Axios
Trinity Test-area residents to finally get reparations 80 years later
New Mexicans impacted by the Trinity Test are getting closer to receiving compensation after eight decades of health problems and rare cancers stemming from the world's first atomic explosion. The big picture: President Trump's recently signed the "big, beautiful bill," which includes an extension of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) and, for the first time, covers victims of the Trinity Test. The inclusion comes after the victims fought for acknowledgement and reparations over multiple generations. It also comes before the 80th anniversary of the Trinity Test, which is next week. Zoom in: Under the extension and inclusion, Trinity victims can apply for $100,000 for damages caused by the 1945 bomb test that helped end World War II. RECA, which awarded financial reparations to people who lived downwind of the Nevada Test Site, ended last year but has now been renewed for two years thanks to pressure from Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) The law was originally passed in 1990, but Hispanic residents and Mescalero Apache tribal members, who were next to the 1945 Trinity Test, were never included. Descendants have suffered from rare cancers for generations. Yes, but: The recently passed legislation gutting Medicaid covers many residents in New Mexico, including Trinity victims. The RECA expansion also does not include eligibility for people near Nuclear testing in the U.S. territory of Guam, parts of Arizona, Montana, Colorado and new parts of Nevada. What they're saying: "The two-year extension will not be long enough for us to get everybody enrolled that should be enrolled, and the health care coverage was stripped out," Tina Cordova, co-founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, said on a call with reporters Thursday. Cordova said she was still grateful and relieved New Mexicans were finally added and that her group will continue to fight for Medicaid restorations. Luján said he's hopeful that his Republican colleagues in the Senate will work with him to reserve some of the Medicaid cuts. "I want to recognize the leadership of Sen. Hawley when we had a chance to begin working on this over the last couple of years." Context: On July 16, 1945, in the New Mexico desert, the U.S. Army detonated an atomic bomb developed at the then-secret community of Los Alamos as part of the World War II-era Manhattan Project. The bomb exploded at 5:29am, and its thunderous roar knocked people from breakfast tables in the historic Hispanic village of Tularosa and sent Mescalero Apache Reservation residents into hiding. Following the test in the Jornada del Muerto desert near Alamogordo, residents often picnicked at the site and took artifacts, including the radioactive green glass known as "trinitite." Residents only learned about the Trinity Test after the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. The bomb's aftermath later caused rare forms of cancer for many of the 30,000 people and their descendants in the area surrounding Trinity. Poor Hispanic residents and Mescalero Apache tribal members held bake sales to pay for cancer treatments. The intrigue: Downwinders received renewed public interest in 2023 following the release of the blockbuster "Oppenheimer," directed by Christopher Nolan. The movie follows American scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer as his team races to create the atomic bomb, but it overlooks the aftermath on the people of New Mexico. What we're watching: The U.S. Justice Department is advising the public to wait "for further guidance" before filing a claim, noting on its website that the bill was only recently signed into law.
Newsweek
30-06-2025
- Newsweek
More than 320,000 in California Told To Keep Windows Closed
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Wildfire smoke in Southern California has prompted officials to issue an air quality alert for roughly 320,000 people until 6 p.m. local time on Monday. A spokesperson with the South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD) told Newsweek the advisory could be extended, and if so, an extension would be issued by Monday afternoon. Why It Matters The smoke is coming from two wildfires, the Wolf fire in Banning Pass and the Mindy fire in the Anza area, the AQMD advisory said. Both fires ignited on Sunday afternoon. As of the most recent update from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE), the Wolf fire in Riverside County is at 1,400 acres and 0 percent contained. The Mindy Fire, also in Riverside County, is at 100 acres and 70 percent contained. What to Know The air quality alert is impacting the cities of Idyllwild, Pine Cove, Indio, Palm Springs, Cathedral City, Palm Desert, Palm Desert Country, La Quinta, and Coachella. The most recent U.S. Census data estimates that around 320,000 people live in the impacted areas. Wildfire smoke can cause harmful fine particle pollution levels that affect everyone, the alert said. People are encouraged to take several actions to protect their health against the impacts of smoke: remain indoors with windows and doors closed; avoid intense outdoor physical activity; run the air conditioner and/or an air purifier; wear an N-95 mask if you must spend time outdoors; do not use whole house fans or swamp coolers; avoid other sources of pollution like fireplaces, candles, incense, grilling, and gas-powered equipment. A stock photo shows a helicopter fighting a forest fire. A stock photo shows a helicopter fighting a forest fire. Toa55/Getty "Particles in wildfire smoke can get deep into the lungs and cause serious health problems such as heart attacks, strokes, asthma attacks, and difficulty breathing," the alert said. "Everyone can be affected, but people with lung or heart disease, older adults, people who are pregnant, children, and those who spend a lot of time outdoors are at greater risk." The air quality alert will remain in place until 6 p.m. local time Monday evening. An extreme heat warning also remains in place for part of Southern California on Monday. Northern California also faces a wildfire threat, with a red flag warning in place. "Lightning from dry thunderstorms can create new fire starts and combined with gusty winds may cause a fire to rapidly grow in Oregon and northern California," a forecast from the National Weather Service (NWS) said. What People Are Saying South Coast AQMD in an air quality alert: "Based on webcam and satellite imagery, winds are transporting the smoke from the Wolf and Mindy wildfires to the north into the Banning Pass and San Bernardino mountains, and into the San Jacinto wilderness and Hemet." CAL FIRE in an update about the Wolf Fire: "Firefighters made good progress over night. Multiple aircraft along with hundreds of firefighters on the ground, will continue to establish containment lines. Evacuation orders and warnings remain in place." What Happens Next The cause of each fire remains under investigation. Evacuation warnings and orders have been lifted for the Mindy fire but remain in place for the Wolf fire.
