Nearly two years after litigation began, a settlement has been reached in a lawsuit over plastic nurdles spilling from trains along San Diego County’s coastal railways. San Diego Coastkeeper announced the resolution with BNSF Railway, addressing concerns that nurdles, small plastic pellets used to make everyday products, have been leaking from railcars and making their way into the ocean, where they can harm marine life and potentially humans. “We are very happy with the settlement,” said Phillip Musegaas, executive director of San Diego Coastkeeper. The lawsuit was first announced in 2024, when San Diego Coastkeeper and the Coastal Environmental Rights Foundation sent a letter suing BNSF over the alleged release of nurdles along railway lines near the coast. “They’re basically the production plastic that’s used to make everything from plastic bottles to Saran wrap to Ziploc bags. Any plastic product,” Musegaas said. According to Coastkeeper, the plastic pellets are shipped in large freight cars designed to keep material contained during transport. “These tiny plastic pellets are basically shipped in enormous freight cars, almost like you would ship grain or wheat or corn,” Musegaas said. “And there’s an opening on the bottom of the car that is supposed to be sealed to keep anything from leaking out.” San Diego Coastkeeper believes some of those railcars are not properly sealed, allowing nurdles to fall onto tracks as trains move through coastal areas. Wind, rain and foot traffic among other conditions can then carry the pellets into nearby waterways and the ocean. “Very small plastics that break down into microplastics that are ingested by marine life and marine mammals,” Musegaas said. Those microplastics can also impact people. “Gets right into the food chain, right into our system. Unfortunately there’s plastic everywhere now. And we, you know, we ingest plastic all the time,” Musegaas said. As part of the settlement, BNSF agreed to implement new inspection procedures and rules aimed at preventing leaks from railcars transporting nurdles. “They’ve rolled out this new procedure, these new rules to do better inspections on their trains,” Musegaas said.“They’ve agreed if they find a railcar that is leaking, they’re not going to take that railcar and put it on their train.” The agreement also includes selecting three locations to monitor over the next year to determine whether nurdles continue to be dropped along the railways. This story was originally reported for broadcast by NBC San Diego. AI tools helped convert the story to a digital article, and an NBC San Diego journalist edited the article for publication. ...read more read less