Cheryl Poxleitner, 71, grew up on farms in North Central Idaho’s Lewis County.
When she was 8, her family moved to Craigmont — a small town near Grangeville, where her dad raised dairy cows.
“That’s probably where I was exposed to radiation,” she recalled in a recent interview. “Becuase many people are saying that the cows eat the grass, which has been contaminated. And … when they produce the milk, the milk is contaminated.”
Within months of each other almost a decade ago, she and her sister were diagnosed with thyroid cancer.
“The surgeon was really stumped,” Poxleitner said. “He said, ‘This is the craziest thing I’ve ever seen: two sisters with thyroid cancer, and so much alike.’”
Now she and many other Idahoans are newly eligible for $100,000 in compensation from the federal government for illnesses linked to nuclear weapon tests in the mid-1900s in Nevada. That came after Congress expanded a compensation program, called the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, also known as RECA, to include Idaho.
Until last year, Idahoans affected by radiation from those nuclear bomb tests — who are commonly called downwinders — were not eligible for compensation for decades through RECA, a program created in the 1990s. That was despite Gem, Custer, Blaine and Lemhi counties being among the top five counties in the U.S. that were most affected by fallout from Nevada nuclear tests in the mid-20th century, according to research by the National Cancer Institute.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law by President Donald Trump in July 2025, expanded the RECA program to downwinders in all of Idaho, Utah and New Mexico.
Now, as Idahoans try to prove they are eligible for the program, many are turning toward libraries to find records of them or their families living in Idaho. And to some archivists, the high demand for their records is proving the value of holding onto decades of old phone books and city directories.
“We hear people’s stories in the process. People are telling us about the hardships they face because of this radiation exposure, or their family’s exposure,” said Dulce Kersting-Lark, who leads University of Idaho’s Library’s Special Collections and Archives. “So, it really reflects that archival work is care work. … You are taking care of records so that hopefully in the future, they are a benefit to somebody.”
Tona Henderson, an advocate who has pushed for years for Idaho to be included in the compensation, says Idaho downwinders are largely finding out about the program by word of mouth. She said there’s been a lack of news coverage about RECA’s expansion to include Idaho.
“You’d think that Idaho being included in this program would be huge news. But it’s been like pulling teeth to get anybody to pay attention,” she said in an interview.
Henderson leads the Idaho Downwinders Group, and says she has helped more than a hundred people get approved for RECA compensation. She travels across the state hosting workshops, and works with librarians that are being inundated with requests for historical documentation for Idahoans to prove their eligibility for the program.
She worked with Idaho’s U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo, a Republican who crafted key parts of the massive bill and has long pushed to expand RECA, to expand RECA to Idaho.
In a statement, Crapo praised her work and invited Idahoans in need of help to contact his office.
“Idahoans were unfairly left out of the RECA program for far too long. I was proud we finally secured coverage for victims in the program’s reauthorization signed into law last year,” Crapo said. “Tona has been a steadfast proponent of the program, and I know she is working around the clock to help qualifying Idahoans apply. Constituents in need of assistance with federal agencies are welcome to contact my office for further assistance.”
What is the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act?
Under the expanded program, Idahoans are now eligible for $100,000 in one-time payment through the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act. That applies if you have had one of 19 types of cancers, and lived in Idaho for at least one year between Jan. 21, 1951, and Nov. 6, 1962, or for just over the entire month of July in 1962.
People who got sick and lived in Utah or New Mexico, or select counties in Arizona and Nevada, are also eligible. If the eligible person died, family members can apply for compensation. File claims through the Justice Department’s claims portal online at reca.justice.gov.
Under the Big Beautiful Bill, RECA is set to expire on Dec. 31, 2028. Before the law extended RECA in July 2025, the program expired for about a year starting in June 2024, the Idaho Capital Sun previously reported.
