From the Office of Utah Congressman Jim Matheson

MATHESON NEWS
Second Congressional District

For Further Information
Alyson Heyrend: (801) 455-5593 (cell)
www.house.gov/matheson

January 27, 2006
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Matheson Notes Somber Anniversary - 55 years since first NTS Blast

Congressman Jim Matheson today said, "The dropping of an atomic bomb just before dawn on Jan. 27, 1951, on the Nevada desert, marked the beginning of a dark chapter in our history. The radiation from the above-ground tests conducted by the federal government for the next 12 years was widely distributed.  But nowhere was the effect felt more tragically than in Southern Utah.  The hard-working, patriotic citizens in those quiet rural towns trusted their government when it told them they were safe.  Instead, we know now, from memos and minutes in once-secret government files, that the government lied.  In 1980, the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce investigated the deaths of 4,500 sheep who died from exposure to radioactive fallout on the Utah range in 1953.  The Committee concluded that the Atomic Energy Commission had engaged in a sophisticated scientific cover-up aimed at protecting the testing program in Nevada at any cost.  My legislation -the Safety for Americans from Nuclear Weapons Testing Act-would hold our government accountable for the health and safety of our citizens prior to any new nuclear weapons testing.  We never want to go down that path of lies and betrayal again."

For more information, please consult this online nuclear weapons testing resource.

#  #  #

Alyson Heyrend
Communications Director
240 East Morris Ave. #235
South Salt Lake, UT 84115
(801) 486-1236 (phone)
(801) 455-5593 (cell)
(801) 486-1417 (fax)