I think the parent's point is that she made the mistake in the first place at all, which lessens her credibility reporting on nuclear-power-related material.

Which I agree with, but I still feel better about the accuracy of this article over pretty much anything else I've read about seawater contamination due to the Fukushima disaster.

Yes, don't get me wrong. Overall the article was really good, and captured nuance and details on how the Ocean deals with this sort of thing in a way that I haven't seen done before. I just think it could have been an extraordinary article if she'd co-authored with an expert in Nuclear Radiation.

She (slightly) committed the sin of believing that just because she's an expert in Oceanography, that she could also carry water in another scientific field.

As do I.

Being as she is a physical geographer and given that the majority of scare articles have related to the spread of radionuclides and the so-called imminent danger to the west coast of the US (and countless doomsday-style scenarios that have been appearing since the events at Fukushima et al), having someone whose research has focused more or less on precisely the subject at hand is certainly relieving as well as enlightening

I think that's the point of this entire article, though. The scaremongering is being perpetrated by people who generally have no background in either oceanography or nuclear physics [1]. So in my mind, whether she's qualified to talk about the materials released is largely moot. The concern among conspiracists is how this material is going to spread (and purportedly kill us all), and she's more than qualified to explain how such theories are an expression of Chicken Littlisms.

[1] Granted, neither myself nor many of us here have such backgrounds, but I choose to lend greater credence to the arguments of someone who does have such a background.