A lawsuit filed by Mississippi Gulf Coast local governments, representatives of its tourism industry and Mississippi fishers against the Army Corps of Engineers to protect bottlenose dolphins from death or injury caused by openings of the Bonnet Carre Spillway has been thrown out by a federal judge in Gulfport.
In an opinion filed Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Louis Guirola Jr. ruled the plaintiffs in the case did not have the authority to file the suit under the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act in part because their recitation of hundreds of dolphin deaths and injuries during a 2019 spillway opening and some previous ones do not represent a real and immediate threat of injury from the next opening required by the law.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit include Harrison County, the cities of Biloxi, D’Iberville and Pass Christian, the Mississippi Hotel and Lodging Association, and Mississippi Commercial Fisheries United. Inc.
All are members of the Mississippi Sound Coalition, which opposes opening the spillway because of the broader impacts of its release of Mississippi River freshwater and nutrients, including the killing of commercial oyster beds, and the creation of toxic blooms of algae that can force recreational beaches to close, affecting tourism…