Spain urges US to remove residue of nuclear bomb accident

Spain has asked the US government to dispose of radioactive residue in an area still believed to be contaminated 57 years after a mid-air collision involving an aircraft carrying nuclear weapons.

On January 17th, 1966, a B-52 bomber belonging to the US military and carrying four thermo-nuclear bombs collided with another aircraft while attempting to refuel over Spain’s southern Mediterranean coast. Both planes crashed, killing seven out of 11 crew members. None of the nuclear explosives the B-52 had been carrying were detonated, but non-nuclear devices in two of the bombs did explode, contaminating an area of land near the village of Palomares with radioactive material.

Hundreds of American military were deployed to clean up the area. Thousands of barrels were filled with contaminated soil in the immediate zone of the accident and transported back to the United States to be buried, while soil in the surrounding land was covered by ploughing.

Weeks after the accident, following protests by local people, a government minister, Manuel Fraga, visited the site and swam in the Mediterranean in an attempt to prove that it was safe. However, in 2007, 40 hectares of land were fenced off because of concerns that 50,000 cubic metres of soil in the area remained contaminated.

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In 2015, the government signed a letter of intent with the then US secretary of state John Kerry whereby Spain would clear up the radioactive soil and the United States would dispose of it.

“They have to take [the contaminated soil],” said Carmen Calvo, a former minister in a previous government who discussed the issue with her US counterparts, when talking about the accident this week. “They have stalled but they can’t do that because the clean-up of what remains costs a lot of money and although there was compensation and an initial clean-up, it has to be finished and it’s difficult.”

El País newspaper reported that there was a plan for the soil to be transported by boat in containers to the United States, where it would be disposed of in the Nevada desert. The operation was estimated to take up to two years, at a cost of about €640 million, including insurance.

However, the governments of both countries changed shortly after the 2015 accord and its terms have not been implemented. Spain’s Socialist-led administration has now formally requested that Washington take on the task.

Antonio Fernández, mayor of Cuevas del Almanzora, where Palomares is located, said that the contaminated soil needs to be taken away in order to remove “the stigma of Palomares”.

“We want this to be an incident that is remembered with cultural and touristic elements and which allows us to bring to an end this negative story which has to end now,” he said.