Veterans of nuclear cleanups could soon get compensation

Between 1948 and 1958, Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands was the site of 43 nuclear bomb tests, including the U.S. military’s first hydrogen bomb detonation. In 1977, the Army sent Robert Celestial, a heavy equipment operator, to the islands to help clean up the nuclear waste.

“My job was to transfer radiated debris from one island to the dome that is there now, Runit Dome,” Celestial said. “I have photographs where we’re inside the crater inside the pond, and all the way up their waist, up their chests, and we didn’t realize that we were in a nuclear detonation [zone].”

Celestial, 69, was a sergeant in the Army during the clean-up and the soldiers on his crew didn’t understand the dangers of their work, he told Task & Purpose. Now, decades later, many of his peers have developed chronic medical conditions including, bone and heart diseases, and several types of cancer.

“I have multiple issues too. By the grace of God, I’m still alive,” he said.

This week, a bill is expected to be introduced that will build on previous efforts to get compensation to nuclear clean-up crews like Celestial’s. The Radiation Exposure Reauthorization Act of 2026 would add eligibility to veterans three atomic cleanup sites. The bill would cover veterans like Celestial from Enewetak Atoll, crews that worked in Palomares, Spain, after a hydrogen bomb fell on the town in an accident, and others who worked near Thule, Greenland after a 1968 crash of a nuclear-armed B-52 bomber (the bombs didn’t detonate in the latter two incidents).

The new bill would build on a previous law, the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, or RECA, passed in 1990 to compensate tens of thousands who were diagnosed with specific cancers or chronic diseases that may have resulted from exposure to the nuclear tests and related activities.

The law currently includes veterans who participated in nuclear tests, residents who lived near weapon test sites like the Nevada Test Site and uranium workers. Because many…