September 10, 2014 — A federal judge rejected an 11th-hour attempt Tuesday to prevent the government's closure of a Marin County oyster farm, filed by another oyster company and restaurants that claimed they would lose seafood supplies and customers.
U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said the arguments in their suit filed July 17 – that the Interior Department had violated environmental laws and ignored the public interest when it refused to renew Drakes Bay Oyster Co.'s offshore lease – were the same as those she had heard and rejected in March 2013 in a suit by Drakes Bay's owners.
"You're awfully late to the game," Gonzalez Rogers told a lawyer for Tomales Bay Oyster Co. and four seafood restaurants. The judge said she understood the concerns of Drakes Bay supporters in her Oakland courtroom, but "that does not justify the filing of frivolous lawsuits."
She stopped short of dismissing the suit, but denied its chief purpose, an injunction that would require the Interior Department to let Drakes Bay continue operating while the agency consulted with federal and state officials about the environmental effects of oyster harvesting.
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