MEI (Marshallese Educational Initiative) recently hosted a series of events, Our Shared Nuclear Legacy, June 29-July 1 including a youth day, commemoration and equity panels. With a critical discussion of nuclear testing, climate change, the coronavirus pandemic and health inequities, the event brought together other communities of color and nuclear affected communities in discussion over two panels.
This year is the 75th anniversary of the first nuclear test on Bikini Atoll (July 1, 1946). RMI Nuclear Commissioner Ariana Tibon, Marshallese community advocate Albious Latior, and Dr. Tommy Rock representing the Navajo First Nation spoke on the Nuclear Panel. RMI Climate Envoy Tina Eonemto Stege, Arkansas United Mireya Rieth, and Kendra Pinto from the Eastern Agency of the Navajo Nation spoke on the Climate Panel, both moderated by Marcina Langrine and Benetick Kabua Maddison. You can still watch the Facebook Live videos of the panel discussions.
The United States conducted 67 nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands from 1946-1958 as well as 33 above ground tests in Nevada just north of Las Vegas. The 13 million tons of uranium for these tests and others were mined from Diné land on the Navajo Nation. More than 85% of Navajo homes were exposed to radiation by this mining. Like in the Marshall Islands, the U.S. tracked radiation exposure of miners without explaining the risks and dangers of the uranium directly affecting more than 4000 Navajo uranium miners. Below ground nuclear testing also continued in Nevada into the 1990’s.
While the United States was the first to begin testing nuclear weapons in 1945, nuclear test programs were also conducted by the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, France and China. British nuclear testing in the Pacific included 12 tests from 1952-1957 in South Australia and an additional 9 tests in Kiritimati and Malden Island from 1957-1958. They also conducted 24 tests jointly with the United States on the Nevada Test Site. France conducted 45 nuclear weapons tests above ground in Algeria and mostly in the Pacific from 1960-1974 with fallout affecting islands and atolls in Samoa and Tahiti. All tests after 1975 have been conducted underground but have been connected to landslides, tsunamis, and earthquakes. In the thirty-five years above ground testing, 510 Megatons have been detonated, equal to 29,000 times that of the bomb dropped in Hiroshima.
The Soviet Union outdid all the other countries with some 150 above ground nuclear tests between 1949-1963 and another 300 tests underground. The largest tests were conducted on two islands in the Artic Circle, Novaya Zemlya. More than 500 indigenous people and some of the reindeer were relocated due to the testing program in Russia. Their largest nuclear test, the Tsar Bomba, was a hydrogen bomb with a yield of 50 Mt. The blast could be seen from 1000 km away leveling everything on the island leaving the land melted and brown.
In comparison, the U.S. Castle Bravo test had a yield of 15 Mt, but radioactive fallout has been found in Australia, Japan and India. Fallout from tests in the Marshall Islands as well as Nevada and other test sites remain buried under the Runit Dome in Enewetak. The unexpected though still thoughtless contamination continues to have a long lasting impact on all the people who lived in the “Pacific Proving Grounds”.