Judge cites threat to sea turtles, halts Georgia dredging plan

U.S. District Judge R. Stan Baker on Thursday ordered an immediate halt to a dredging plan in Georgia due to the threat it posed to sea turtles nesting on a nearby beach.

Baker issued the injunction to the Army Corp of Engineers, which is trying to overturn a policy that has limited the dredging of sand and mud in harbors in Florida and the Carolinas to only the winter months for the past 30 years, The Associated Press reports.

The policy had been enacted in order to protect sea turtles from being killed by the dredging equipment, the AP notes.

The Army Corps claims that the seasonal policy is now irrelevant, pointing to a report released last year in which federal government scientists found sea turtles could endure around 150 deaths per year from dredging. The corps argued that seasonal limit focuses too much on the turtles.

However, Baker argued against that assertion.

“Frankly it’s a stretch to believe the Corps would have abstained from spring and summer dredging in the area for decades if it did not believe there was a significant danger to loggerhead sea turtles during that time,” he said, according to the AP.

Baker issued the injunction after conservation group One Hundred Miles filed a lawsuit in federal court over the proposed change to the policy. The judge stated that dredging efforts would be limited to December unless the agency could use a different type of dredging that was less harmful to the turtles.

“There is a strong likelihood that a substantial and appreciable number of those turtles would be killed by hopper dredging during those months,” Baker said at the end of a hearing on Thursday, the AP reports.

Giant loggerhead sea turtles, which nest on beaches in Florida and the Carolinas during the spring and summer, are a federally threatened species. Small numbers of green and Kemp’s ridley sea turtles also lay eggs in this region, the AP notes.