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ARCHIVED - Spain demands the US cleans up 1960s Almeria nuclear accident site
Palomares was the scene of a devastating nuclear bomb accident in 1966
Almost six decades after a terrifying mid-air plane crash resulted in tonnes of nuclear bombs being dropped over Palomares in Almería, the Biden Administration has agreed to look into cleaning up its mess following an “official request” from the Spanish government.
On January 17 of 1966, two American aircraft, a KC-135 tanker plane and a B-52 strategic bomber, collided in the middle of a resupply manoeuvre, causing four thermonuclear bombs to crash to earth in the Andalucia municipality which left 40 hectares of soil contaminated with americium and plutonium.
The spokesperson for the State Department, now headed by Antony Blinken, reminded Spain that the US government actually shifted 1,700 tonnes of contaminated earth by boat to South Carolina shortly after the accident but a 2015 verbal agreement between the nations to clean up the irradiated zone has never been acted upon.
Last summer, fresh attention was drawn to the contaminated 103-hectare site when British property developer Bahía de Almanzora announced plans to build 1,600 homes, plus a hotel and a sports complex around a kilometre away, and following several meetings surrounding the “additional decontamination of the site”, the US government has reiterated that “the Biden-Harris Administration is open to continuing dialogue on this issue”.
It’s unclear whether the new negotiations will be on the basis of the agreement reached with Barack Obama in 2015, which stipulated that the US would be responsible for the clean-up.
Eight years ago, the then Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, José Manuel García-Margallo said that the understanding would allow Spain and the US to “repair a mistake made 50 years ago”.
“All’s well that ends well,” he said at the time, although no formal terms were announced about which country would assume the financial burden of decontaminating Almería.
In that statement, the United States expressed its desire to “provide the necessary assistance” to achieve the objective of a “greater rehabilitation” of the area around Palomares, and promised to agree to “the deposit of contaminated land in a suitable location” outside of Spain.
Image: Mike McBey via Wikimedia Commons
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