In what may be a tentative victory for environmentalists and those opposed to the project, plans for the confined aquatic disposal site in Newport Bay have been halted as a result of a lawsuit filed by Orange County Coastkeeper. The environmentalist group has long contested the construction of the CAD, which is meant to contain dredged material considered too toxic for open ocean release from federal channels. Opponents of the project have contended that U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plans wrongfully characterize the sediment as “harmless,” though city officials say the Environmental Protection Agency described it as neither toxic nor threatening. The Coastal Commission gave the OK for the project in October 2022, and the first dredge of those same channels occurred in the summer of that year.