Candidates weigh in on payments to downwinders

BOISE – Boise has been buzzing this fall about area downwinders from the 1950s nuclear tests in Nevada, and how those who got cancer haven’t been included in federal payment programs for downwinders like those in other states.

Among those hardest hit were rural children who drank fresh milk from local cows and goats that had grazed on grass contaminated by the fallout. When Boise newspaper columnist Dan Popkey invited local people to share their stories last month, those writing in included former Gov. Phil Batt’s daughter.

Leslie Batt-Corbett, who contracted thyroid cancer, told Popkey she wasn’t interested in the money. “But I would like to hear the government say, for once, ‘Yeah, we did that and we’re sorry,’ ” she told the Idaho Statesman writer.

Popkey has pointed the finger squarely at Sen. Larry Craig and then-Sen. and now Gov. Dirk Kempthorne for not following through on earlier promises to include Idahoans in a program that pays victims from affected counties in Utah, Nevada and Arizona $50,000 apiece. Now, politicians are snapping to attention. Sen. Mike Crapo attended an emotional rally in Emmett in September that included many victims, and he pledged to help.

This week, congressional candidate Naomi Preston added her voice to the debate. The Democrat who is challenging 1st District Rep. Butch Otter was sharply critical of Idaho’s entire congressional delegation, all of whom are Republicans, for accepting tens of thousands in campaign contributions from PACs for the nuclear energy industry.

“I really want to see Idaho’s politicians provide support for these forgotten citizens,” Preston said. “The impact of the nuclear industry on Idaho’s politicians is also evidenced in Butch Otter’s introduction in November 2003 of House Resolution 442, congratulating the nuclear industry on its 50th anniversary.”

Otter’s press secretary, Mark Warbis, said Otter has been all over the downwinder issue. “We’ve been out in the forefront,” he said. “Many of his constituents have contacted him on this issue and he has responded without fail.”

Otter and other Idaho officials successfully sought a Boise hearing in November where Idaho downwinders will tell their stories to a National Academy of Sciences panel. Otter was the first in the congressional delegation to request the hearing, sending a letter on July 27 after being contacted by cancer sufferer Sheri Garmon.

But Warbis wouldn’t say if Otter supports payments for Idaho downwinders. “Butch isn’t a scientist,” he said. “This whole process has to be driven by science. … What we can see to is that a full accounting of the science is done, and that if the facts show that compensation is due, that that gets accomplished.”

A long-delayed government study released in 1997 showed that four of the five counties hardest hit by the fallout were in Idaho. Articles by Spokesman-Review reporter Karen Dorn Steele broke the story of how the controversial fallout study, requested by Congress in 1983, had been finished in 1992 but had never been published – helping to force its release in 1997.

Idaho senators said after the study’s release that they’d fight for compensation for Idahoans, but Idaho wasn’t included when Congress expanded the payment program in 2000.

Preston maintained that the issue is just one example of the impact of special interest money through PACs. “It’s time Idahoans know the real impact of special interest groups on their elected officials,” she said. “In my run for Congress in Idaho’s 1st Congressional District against Butch Otter, I have not accepted any special interest money.”

The Federal Elections Commission confirmed that as of the last report, at the end of June, Preston reported receiving no PAC money.

Those essential introductions

Butch Otter has been playing host at receptions and fund-raisers for Republican legislative candidates, including Joyce Broadsword, Mike Jorgenson, Phil Hart, Frank Henderson, Bob Nonini and Marge Chadderdon.

“There are like five or six (candidates) from North Idaho that came down here, and we hosted a little reception for them to meet some of the lobbyists,” said Jason Lehosit, Otter’s campaign manager. “You could pretty much name ‘em, if they’re on the Republican ballot up there, we’re helping ‘em out.”

Candidate forums

The Coeur d’Alene, Post Falls and Hayden chambers of commerce will hold a joint candidate forum Oct. 18 at Coeur d’Alene City Hall, with candidates from legislative districts 3, 4 and 5. The forum will start at 6 p.m. and is free and open to the public. Does your organization have a candidate forum coming up? Let us know, and we’ll include it in this Sunday listing.