The infected soil in Almeria is the result of a 1966 air fate twist involving a B-52 loaded with hydrogen bombs.
Nearly 60 years after a mid-air collision dropped 4 US hydrogen bombs on southeastern Spain, scattering radioactive plutonium across the landscape, the Spanish government has renewed efforts to get Washington to ship tens of thousands of cubic meters of infected soil. to the United States for storage.
A source in Spain’s foreign ministry showed on Monday that it had officially asked the United States to take steps to remove radioactive earth. The request is in line with a nonbinding agreement reached between the two countries in 2015 that included a U. S. commitment to “make arrangements for the disposal of infected soil in a suitable location in the United States. “
As the United States had not yet officially responded, the source declined to give additional details. El Pais, the Spanish newspaper that first reported the story, said the request was submitted a few months ago. The U. S. government did not respond to a request for comment. .
The filing is the latest bankruptcy in a saga dating back to January 1966 when a nuclear-armed U. S. B-52 bomber collided with a tanker in an in-flight refueling operation off Almeria, Spain. Seven of the 11 crew members of the two planes were killed.
Four hydrogen bombs fell from the B-52; one later recovered intact in the Mediterranean while the other 3 crashed ashore near the coastal town of Palomares.
While the bombs did not explode, two of the plutonium-filled detonators exploded, scattering 7 pounds of radioactive plutonium-239 across the landscape.
USA. The U. S. Department of Health sent about 1600 Army workers to the crash site to recover weapons and remove contamination. Approximately 1400 tons of infected soil were sent to a facility in South Carolina.
Both countries were keen to downplay the collision, which took place at the height of the Cold War and when Spain was under Franco’s dictatorship.
Amid fears that radioactive contamination would damage the country’s fledgling tourism industry, Spain’s then-tourism minister and U. S. ambassador bathed in the sea off Palomares in the weeks following the incident.
Concerns about the lingering effects of the collision were catapulted to the forefront in 2007, after it was suggested that up to 50,000 square meters of land remained contaminated. The affected domain has been fenced off and banned from use for agriculture or development.
In 2015, Madrid and Washington signed an agreement to negotiate a binding agreement for the site’s remediation. “We will have to build on today’s signing to take additional steps to, once and for all, this very vital issue,” he said. Secretary of State John Kerry said at a joint news conference with then-Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo.
However, little has been done to put the agreement into effect, since the elections have meant adjustments in Spain and the United States. The Spanish government’s recent resolution to return to the factor with the United States prompted the assessment that bilateral relations were “at their most productive moment in years,” resources told El País, raising hopes that progress can be made before Spain heads into parliamentary elections at the end of the year.