NH #786: Protecting Navajo Nation from New Uranium Rush – Dr. Tommy Rock + Trinity Blast Nuclear Downwinders Tina Cordova, Bernice Guttierez

Trinity atomic bomb blast – one second into the Atomic Age – July 16, 1945

This Week’s Featured Interviews:

Dr. Tommy Rock is a member of the Navajo Nation from Monument Valley, Utah. He got his Bachelor’s degree from Arizona State University in Environmental Geography and Recreational Management in 2002, received his Master’s degree from Northern Arizona University in 2008, and returned to Northern Arizona University, to receive his Ph.D. in Earth Science and Environmental Sustainability in 2017.

His particular interest is pursuing a multidisciplinary approach to solving complicated issues such as sustainability in the Southwest from a Native American perspective.

LINKS from interview:

• Protecting the Navajo Nation from the New Uranium Rush

Bernice Guttierez

• Bernice Guttierez was born only eight days before the Trinity blast and only 35 miles from ground zero. She explains the legacy of the bomb on the health of five generations of her family and her activism and research into resulting infant mortality.

Tina Cordova

Tina Cordova, demonstrating outside the Trinity Site, which she does every July 16 – the anniversary of the Trinity test – the first atomic bomb blast.

• Tina Cordova is a sixth generation native New Mexican born and raised in the small town of Tularosa in south central New Mexico, less than 50 miles from the Trinity site. In 2005 Tina co-founded the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium (TBDC) with the late Fred Tyler. Since then, she has been an unstoppable campaigner for the rights of those harmed by radiation downwind of the Trinity atomic bomb blast and an internationally honored leader. 


  
  I spoke with Tina Cordova on July 14, 2025.

Numnutz of the Week (for Outstanding Nuclear Boneheadedness):

Nuclear radiation accident at South Africa’s only nuclear reactor and they’re still using Three Mile Island talking points about “no more radiation than you’d get from a dental xray” – lying misdirection! – to get off the hook!