As Hurricane Milton pummels Florida’s west coast with powerful winds and flooding rain, environmentalists are worried 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 fertilizer processing plants in the central part of the state, and environmentalists say nearly all of them are in Milton’s projected path. (...)