Radioactive Snails Lead to Spain-U.S. Atomic Probe

MADRID (Reuters) - The discovery of radioactive snails at a site in southeastern Spain where three U.S. hydrogen bombs fell by accident 40 years ago may trigger a new joint U.S.-Spanish clean-up operation, officials said on Wednesday.

The hydrogen bombs fell near the fishing village of Palomares in 1966 after a mid-air collision between a bomber and a refuelling craft, in which seven of 11 crewmen died.

Hundreds of tons of soil were removed from the Palomares area and shipped to the United States after high explosive igniters on two bombs detonated on impact, spreading plutonium dust-bearing clouds across nearby fields.

Spanish authorities say the appearance of higher than normal levels of radiation in snails and other creatures shows there may be dangerous levels of plutonium and uranium below ground, and a further clean up could be necessary.

"We have to study the dirt, we have to look underground," said Juan Antonio Rubio, director general of Spain's energy research agency CIEMAT, which is carrying out an investigation with the U.S. Department of Energy.

The U.S. and Spain have agreed to share the cost of the initial investigation, which is set to begin in November.

The governments have yet to agree on who would pay for a clean up, according to a U.S. embassy spokesman in Spain.

Spain's government has bought a 25 acre area near Palomares where the bombs fell.

Since 1966, the United States has helped pay for Palomares residents to be checked for signs of radiation poisoning. Spain says there is today no danger from surface radiation.

But it still advises local children not to work in fields at the explosion site, nor eat their snails -- which are a local delicacy.

Here's some more info on the bomber incident from the Wikipedia entry:

Hydrogen Bomb incident

On January 17, 1966 a B-52 bomber of the USAF Strategic Air Command crashed into a KC-135 tanker while refuelling. Of the four hydrogen bombs that it carried, three were found on land, while the fourth was lost at sea. It was recovered eighty days later. 1,750 tons of contaminated material were excavated and sent to South Carolina for disposal.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara publicly assigned a value to the lost bomb of two billion U.S. dollars. The search for the fourth bomb was carried out by means of a novel mathematical method, Bayesian search theory, which assigns probabilities to individual map grid squares, then updates these as the search progresses. The mathematical team, from Wagner Associates, was led by Dr John Craven. The method requires as input initial probabilities for the grid squares, and these probabilities made use of the fact that a local fisherman, Francisco Simó Orts, witnessed the bomb entering the water at a certain location. Simó Orts contracted with the US Air Force to assist in the search operation. After the bomb had been located, Simó Orts turned up at the First District Federal Court building in New York City with his lawyer, Herbert Brownell, formerly Attorney General of the United States under President Dwight Eisenhower, claiming salvage rights on the recovered hydrogen bomb. According to Craven:

"It is customary maritime law that the person who identifies the location of a ship to be salvaged has the right to a salvage award if that identification leads to a successful recovery. The amount is nominal, usually 1 or 2 percent, sometimes a bit more, of the intrinsic value to the owner of the thing salvaged. But the thing salvaged off Palomares was a hydrogen bomb, the same bomb valued by no less an authority than the Secretary of Defense at $2 billion — each percent of which is, of course, $20 million."

The Air Force settled out of court.

Two of the three bombs found on land had broken open, spilling plutonium over 200 hectares of land. Initially, more than one million tons of contaminated soil were removed and shipped to the USA for decontamination. In 2004, a study^{[citation needed]} revealed that there was still some significant contamination present in certain areas, and the Spanish government subsequently disowned some plots of land which would have been slated for housing construction otherwise. In early October, 2006, the Spanish and United States government agreed to decontaminate the remaining areas and share the workload and costs, which are hitherto unknown as it first needs to be determined to what extent leaching of the plutonium has occurred in the 40 years since the incident.

On 11th October 2006 radioactive snails were discovered according to Juan Antonio Rubio, director general of Spain's energy research agency CIEMAT, which is carrying out an investigation with the U.S.

The U.S. and Spain have agreed to share the cost of the initial investigation, which is set to begin in November. The governments have yet to agree on who would pay for a clean up, according to a U.S. embassy spokesman in Spain.

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