MOBILE, AL - Federal Senior District Judge Charles R. Butler’s office issued a ruling blocking the expenditure of $58.5 million in National Resource Damage Assessment money to build a lodge in Gulf State Park in Gulf Shores.

The suit against NOAA and its parent agency, the Department of the Interior, says NRDA funds should be used for environmental restoration in the wake of the BP oil spill and not rebuilding a hotel that was destroyed in a hurricane in 2004.

Arguments for both sides were presented to Butler in Mobile on Jan. 26. His ruling was emailed to media outlets on Feb. 16.

“While we are disappointed with Judge Butler’s decision, it will not impede our progress at the park," spokesman Cooper Shattuck of the Gulf State Project said. "There are other funds available for the continued work on the lodge that do not include taxpayer dollars.

"The court’s ruling does not affect the other aspects of the project (trails, dune restoration, interpretive center, and research and education campus), which will continue unaffected.”

In 2013 Gov. Robert Bentley signed a bill authorizing the expenditure of $85.5 million of NRDA money, a grant program administered through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, for improvements at Gulf State Park.

The bulk, $58 million, was earmarked to build a new on-beach facility Bentley was at first calling a hotel and convention center. More than $27 million is allocated for a series of environmental improvements throughout the park including a research and education facility for students, trails and dune restoration.

Recently, $50 million of BP money was added to the pot, making it a more than $130 million endeavor.

Nisa Miranda of the University of Alabama Center for Economic Development was the initial lead on the project in March and presenting the entire Gulf State Park Project to the public in a series of open houses. The final one was Feb. 4 at the Orange Beach Community Center.

In March, Miranda said the uncertainty of an impending state or federal lawsuits won’t stop the group’s work.

“The money has been set aside for this project so there’s no reason for us not to move forward,” she said. “Who’s to know what’s going to happen with that?”

According to the ruling: The Federal Trustees have violated the (National Environmental Policy Act) and (Oil Pollution Act) by failing to conduct a proper alternatives analysis with respect to the Gulf State Park lodge and conference center project contained in the Phase III of the (Planning for Restoration with Public Input.

The final Phase III plan proposes $627 million for 44 new early restoration projects across the Gulf states. It also includes a programmatic environmental impact statement (EIS) and programmatic restoration plan for early restoration.

The ruling further stated: Both the Federal Trustees and the State Trustee are enjoined from expending any of the $58.5 million in early restoration funds for use in the development or construction of the Gulf State Park lodge and conference center until such time as the Trustees comply with the alternatives analysis requirements of OPA and NEPA.

The Gulf Restoration Network, an environmental group out of New Orleans, is the plaintiff in the suit.

Gunter Guy, the commissioner of Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, is one of the defendants listed in the lawsuit.

Listed as defendants from the federal government are Sally Jewell, Secretary of the Interior, U.S Department of the Interior, Dr. Kathryn Sullivan, Undersecretary of Commerce for the Oceans and Atmosphere and Administrator of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Gina McCarty, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and Tom Valsack, Secretary of Agriculture.