Photograph Source: IAEA Imagebank – https://www.flickr.com/photos/iaea_imagebank/5765324940/ – CC BY-SA 2.0

The dispersal of radioactive wastewater from the Fukushima-Daiichi reactor disaster site to the Pacific Ocean is “in line with international safety standards” according to a task force set up by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear power advocacy program, in a December 24, 2024 report.

Ever since the Tokyo Electric Power Co., or Tepco, first proposed pumping wastewater left from cooling Fukushima’s three hot piles of melted reactor fuel into the Pacific, the IAEA has supported, encouraged, and endorsed the plan, in spite of its own formal published guidelines which advise against it.

In June 2023, Dr. Arjun Makhijani of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, published a scathing critique of the IAEA’s approval, finding the oceanic pollution violates essential provisions of the agency’s own General Safety Guide.