I have often blogged about the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State which is one of the most radioactively contaminated sites on Earth due to the nuclear weapons program that spent decades creating and dumping radioactive materials with little regard to safety. There are areas in many countries that are contaminated with radioactive materials from a variety of causes. Today, I am going to blog about such areas in the country of Spain.
There are six zones in Spain that are listed with the Nuclear Security Council (NSC) as containing radioactive materials. Although the government is fully aware of these sites, none are official listed as being contaminated because Spain has not yet generated a formal list of sites affected by leaks of radioactive materials. There was a royal decree to draft such a list but that was ten years ago and the list still does not exist.
The NSC says that the existing Nuclear Energy Law will have to be amended before the inventory of contaminated sites can be generated. Since 2008, there has been no action on the part of the Spanish government. The NSC says that these sites do exist but they are not recognized as officially contaminated sites.
At Palomares in southeastern Spain, a U.S. B-52 bomber collided with a refueling plane in January of 1966. As a result of the midair collision, the B-52 dropped four hydrogen bombs. Fortunately, the bombs did not explode but they did strew plutonium across the area.
The Juan Vigón National Nuclear Energy Center is located on the campus of Madrid’s university. In Novermber of 1970, about nine gallons of highly radioactive liquid from a spent nuclear fuel reprocessing facility at the Energy Center leaked into the sewer system and then flowed into the Manzanares river. It continued on to the Jarama River, the connected irrigation canal and finally reached the Tagus River.
The fascist regime of Franco was working on an atomic bomb and they kept the leak secret. They did drain the Jarama irrigation canal and collect the contaminated soil lining the canal which contained cesium-137 and strontium-90. The sludge from the canal was ultimately buried in eight ditches that had been dug beside the canal. There are no warning signs where the waste is buried.
There are two more contaminated sites along the Tinto River which runs through the Huelva Province in southwestern Spain. There is one site in the marshes of Mendana located on the estuary of the Tinto River. It contains large amounts of cesium-137. The other spot is located where the Tinto River joins the Odiel river. This site contains high levels of radium-226.
El Hondon is a rural area in Cartegena which is in southeastern Spain. A phosphate sludge containing uranium-238 can be found there. The Ebro reservoir is located in northeastern Spain near the town of Flix in the provice of Catalonia. A phosphate sludge containing uranium-238 was also present there but the CSN claims that the sludge has already been removed.
The CSN recently issued a press release that said that the Ecological Transition Ministry was working on making the legal changes that were required before an official list of sites in Spain contaminated with radioactive materials could be drawn up. The release also said that “There are several sites showing radioactivity originating from human activity. It is estimated that there is no significant radiological risk.” Which is what governmental bodies usually say when confronted with evidence of radioactive contamination.
Environmental groups in Spain are protesting the lack of government action on the contaminated sites. They recently demonstrated at the site of one of the ditches along the Jarama irrigation canal. They said: “A mere visual inspection of the site clearly shows how easy it is to access. This lack of oversight has meant that, over the years, some of the earth may have been moved around, causing a possible risk of radioactive contamination to the local population. Right now there is no guarantee whatsoever that this toxic waste hasn’t been moved and scattered. In fact, some of the sites are in the same spots as infrastructure such as the A-4 bypass, roads and transmission towers.”