Polluted waste from Florida's fertiliser industry in path of Milton's fury

As Hurricane Milton pummelled Florida's west coast with powerful winds and flooding rain, environmentalists worry it could scatter the polluted leftovers of the state's phosphate fertilizer mining industry and other hazardous waste across the peninsula and into vulnerable waterways.

More than 1 billion tons of slightly radioactive phosphogypsum waste is stored in stacks that resemble enormous ponds at risk for leaks during major storms. Florida has 25 such stacks, most concentrated around enormous phosphate mines and fertiliser processing plants in the central part of the state, and environmentalists say nearly all of them are in Milton's projected path.

Placing vulnerable sites so close on major waterways that are at risk of damage from storms is a recipe for disaster, said Ragan Whitlock, a staff attorney at the environmental group Centre for Biological Diversity. These are ticking time bombs.

Phosphogypsum, a solid waste byproduct from processing phosphate ore to make chemical ..