At Tularosa Vigil, Cordova Announces She Will Address UN General Assembly — First Time Alamogordo, Tularosa, Carrizozo and Otero County Will Be Named There Together

By Chris Edwards | Alamogordo Town News

TULAROSA, N.M. — Under a sky that opened into a downpour and then, just as suddenly, a double rainbow, several people from the broader community gathered Saturday evening at Tularosa Veterans Memorial Park for the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium’s annual candlelight vigil honoring the more than 900 known victims of radiation sickness tied to the 1945 Trinity nuclear test.

It was at that vigil that TBDC co-founder Tina Cordova announced she has been invited to address the United Nations General Assembly — a moment she told this outlet will mark the first time the communities of Alamogordo, Tularosa, Carrizozo, and Otero County as a whole will be named together before the UN body. Cordova confirmed the appearance directly to this outlet following the event.

A night of remembrance

The vigil began at 7:30 p.m. and continued into the evening. For each of the more than 900 names remembered, organizers lit a luminary, tolled a bell, read the name aloud, and struck a drumbeat — a ceremony repeated hundreds of times over the course of the night for people from Alamogordo, Tularosa, Carrizozo, and across Otero County who died of illnesses tied to radiation exposure from the Trinity blast.

Attendees included representatives from the offices of U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez and U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján, along with Alamogordo Mayor Sharon McDonald, Tularosa Mayor Deborah Cooksey, and Alamogordo City Commissioner Warren Robinson.

The UN announcement

Cordova’s forthcoming UN General Assembly address adds an international dimension to a fight she has waged for two decades. The Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, which she co-founded in 2005, has long pressed for the federal government to acknowledge and compensate the New Mexicans exposed to fallout from the world’s first nuclear detonation — communities that, unlike downwinders in Nevada, Utah, and Idaho, were left out of the original 1990 Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) for decades.

The announcement comes amid an active push in Washington to expand that compensation further. Just days before the vigil, on July 14, Cordova joined U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez and members of Congress from Missouri and Nevada at a virtual news conference to back the Radiation Exposure Reauthorization Act of 2026, a bill that would extend RECA’s application deadline by 15 years, raise compensation from $100,000 to $150,000, expand the list of qualifying illnesses, and allow the use of affidavits for claimants unable to produce decades-old medical records. According to Department of Justice figures cited at that news conference, roughly 4,400 RECA claims have been filed since the 2025 expansion, with 558 approved and $55.8 million paid out so far.

“I think that it’s high time our government realizes that we are not going to stand for justice for some,” Cordova said at a July 14 news conference. “We are in favor of justice for not just a few, but justice for the many.”

What comes next

This outlet has not yet confirmed the specific date of Cordova’s UN General Assembly appearance or the session under which she will speak; that information is expected to follow. This story will be updated with those details, along with any additional confirmation from Cordova, the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, or United Nations sources, as they become available.

This article reflects information confirmed directly with Tina Cordova and this outlet’s on-the-ground reporting from the July 25, 2026 vigil, along with prior reporting on the Radiation Exposure Reauthorization Act of 2026.

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