Radioactive fallout from Nevada Test Site impacted Canada

Radioactive Iodine-131 fallout from Nevada Test Site across U.S. by county, measured in radsIn such U.S. states as Utah and Idaho, the 61st anniversary of the first nuclear weapons test at the Nevada Test Site was marked by a National Day of Remembrance for Downwinders, and a call for compensation and health care for an expanded number of fallout victims and uranium workers. However, as shown by the map at the left, radioactive fallout from the Nevada Test Site did not magically stop at the U.S. border. Judging by the high levels of fallout in Montana and North Dakota counties immediately on the Canadian border, it is reasonable to assume that significant radioactive fallout entered Canadian provinces. Ironically, Saskatchewan provided a large fraction of the uranium that went into the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal, as documented in Jim Harding's 2007 book Canada's Deadly Secret: Saskatchewan Uranium and the Global Nuclear System (Fernwood Publishing, Halifax and Winnipeg) -- only to have it "return to sender" as hazardous radioactive fallout from nuclear weapons testing in Nevada.

Similarly, while proposed U.S. legislation would expand Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) coverage to the U.S. territory of Guam, downwind of U.S. nuclear weapons tests in the Pacific, no mention is made of the many other countries in the Pacific likewise downwind.