One immovable position that this editorial board has always held is its opposition to renewed nuclear testing. We are in an area that was pelted with nuclear fallout that drifted over the region during explosions detonated at the Nevada Test Site during the Cold War.

We have seen the death and disease caused by these tests.

The obituary page is a grim reminder of the carnage that befell the Downwinders who, through no fault of their own, contracted cancer and died from exposure.

That is why we applaud Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, for taking on GOP Senate candidates Tim Bridgewater and Mike Lee, who both recently said they would support resumption of underground nuclear weapons tests.

Lee signed a "Peace Through Strength" pledge last week, which outlines a set of defense policy positions that range from not trying enemy combatants in U.S. courts to modernization and testing of the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

Bridgewater went on record as saying that he would support such tests if they were deemed necessary "by our military experts."

Both men should know better. They both lost their fathers to cancer, possibly as a result of being downwind of the nuclear tests. So did Matheson, whose father, Scott, was governor of Utah from 1977 until 1985.

More than 900 nuclear weapons tests were undertaken at the Nevada Test Site from 1951 through 1992. There were 100 above-ground detonations. Of those, about 25 percent were larger than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

There is evidence, according to National Centers for Disease Control, that there were thousands upon thousands more victims of these tests than originally thought.

At the time, the good and trusting people of Utah were lied to, by the government's own admission. They were told these tests were harmless. Yet, the research community now claims that nuclear fallout from these tests rained down on each of the 48 contiguous states of this nation.

What occurred all those years ago was an outrage.

To allow it to rekindle, with the numerous studies and evidence we have today, would be morally bereft.

A resumption of nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site would be dangerous and ignorant snub to the history written on the headstones of cemeteries in Southern Utah and elsewhere where this poison reached out and took loved ones from us.