Spain, US in new accord on nuclear accident site cleanup

Washington and Madrid have reached a new agreement in principle for the United States to clean up land contaminated by radiation from undetonated nuclear bombs that accidentally fell on a site in southern Spain in 1966, a joint statement said Monday.

The two sides "intend to negotiate a binding agreement for a cooperative effort to conduct further remediation of the Palomares site and arrange for disposal of the contaminated soil at an appropriate site in the United States," the statement said.

Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo said both sides wanted the cleanup to start soon but gave no further details on the agreement.

"The desire is to do it now, as soon as possible, and that Palomares returns to the normality that it had before 1966," he told a joint news conference in Madrid with US Secretary of State John Kerry.

On January 17, 1966, a US B-52 bomber carrying four nuclear bombs collided with a tanker plane during mid-air refuelling over the Mediterranean off the coast of Spain, killing seven of 11 crew members.

None of the bombs exploded, although the detonators in two of them broke up, spreading seven pounds (three kilos) of plutonium over a 200-hectare (490-acre) area near the village of Palomares.

Seeking to demonstrate there was no danger, the US ambassador to Spain at the time and the tourism minister in Spanish dictator Francisco Franco's government, Manuel Fraga, went for a swim in local waters, producing one of the most famous photos of the dictatorship.

Under an earlier accord that ended in 2010, Washington paid 314,000 euros ($350,000) a year for tests for radioactive contamination and regular blood tests for more than 1,000 Palomares residents.

- 'Want to close chapter' -
Immediately after the accident, both countries took steps to secure the area by removing contaminated soil and for decades the rural area was deemed free of radioactivity.

But in the early 1990s, the farm land started to be converted to homes as part of a nationwide property boom, and radioactive remnants were stirred up.

A Spanish government study carried out between 2004 and 2007 found radioactive traces in a 40-hectare area although it said there was no danger to local residents.

As a precaution the government sealed off the area until it could reach a deal with Washington over a cleanup.

The agreement announced on Monday is confidential and the details over how the clean up will be carried out, when it will be done and how it will be financed were not released by Spain's foreign ministry. It said, though, that development of the plan was already "very advanced".

The mayor of Palomares, Maria Isabel Alarcon, remained cautious.

"Until we see definitive results, we don't believe in anything," she told AFP.

"People go about their daily lives but after 50 years, we want to close this chapter once and for all."

Green group Ecologists in Action blasted the confidentiality of the agreement and said Washington should be responsible for all the cleanup costs and provide financial compensation for local people.

"The United States is responsible for this accident and for not putting an end to this contamination which was inherited from the Cold War. They should have solved it without any financial contribution" from Spain, said the group's spokesman, Francisco Castejon.

Source: AFP