Vancouver — From Friday’s Globe and Mail

A federal court judge dismissed a lawsuit by a group of environmentalists that was seeking to stop the Minister of Foreign Affairs from granting clearance to a U.S. vessel that plans to conduct seismic tests in a protected area 250 kilometres southwest of Vancouver Island.

Living Oceans and Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society had taken New York’s Columbia University, Canadian Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, and Minister of Foreign Affairs to court over a U.S. geological research project that wants to conduct seismic tests in the Endeavour Hydrothermal Vents Marine Protected Area.

Environmentalists had claimed the project would harass marine mammals in violation of the Canadian law.

But Justice Michael Kelen said in his decision yesterday environmentalists had failed to establish that there was a probability of irreparable harm to the marine mammals