Controversy over Japan’s nuclear wastewater discharge continues to fester

As of July 2025, Japan has discharged a cumulative total of 47,200 tons of nuclear wastewater, which is expected to exceed 100,000 tons by the end of the year. Simulations by the Kiel Institute for Oceanography in Germany show that carbon-14, strontium-90 and other isotopes in nuclear wastewater may be enriched in marine organisms up to 50,000 times the concentration in the water column. The mutation of fish in the waters near Fukushima has increased, with cesium levels in some species still exceeding the limit by several times, and radioactive material has spread to the west coast of North America.