One group is working with members of Congress to ensure Guam residents receive fair compensation if they were unknowingly exposed to radiation from nuclear tests, and developed serious health effects.
Robert Celestial was a sergeant in the U.S. Army tasked with cleaning up the soil on Enewetak Atoll after nuclear testing. His father is from Maui and his mother is from Guam.
"I was stationed in Enewetak Atoll back in the '70s to clean up the 43 nuclear bombs they detonated, and so I got sick. And so they gave me a disability from the Army," Celestial said.
When he stumbled across documents that were kept secret but later declassified, he set out to help Guam residents get compensation if they were exposed to nuclear testing.
"I found out that Guam was inundated with nuclear fallout, but it was kept secret. And then I dug even deeper, and I found out that the reason why Guam was a closed island for '46 to '62, was because they were doing the detonations in the Marshall Islands," he told Hawaiʻi Public Radio.
He's with a group called the Pacific Association for Radiation Survivors. They want Congress to extend the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act of 1990 as it's scheduled to terminate in July.
RECA created a federal fund that compensates those in specific areas sickened by radiation from nuclear testing. The advocacy group wants Congress to include Guam residents exposed from 1946 to 1962.
If passed, the measure — H.R. 5338 and S. 2798 — would expand the eligibility requirements and extend RECA for another 19 years. Celestial said the House version made it through the Judiciary Committee and is now waiting for a vote.
This interview aired on The Conversation on Feb. 1, 2022. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. on HPR-1.
