The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit denied a motion by five environmental groups to block a federal district judge's ruling last month that the deepening to 45 feet could begin in a 12-mile section of the river off Delaware.

Chief Judge Anthony J. Scirica issued an order that the groups had "failed to meet the standards for an injunction or stay pending appeal."

He was joined by Circuit Judges Julio M. Fuentes and Thomas M. Hardiman.

The Philadelphia-based Third Circuit cited two U.S. Supreme Court rulings in making its decision. The first, Winter v. National Resources Defense Council Inc., says a party seeking injunctive relief must establish "that he is likely to succeed on the merits, that he is likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of preliminary relief, that the balance of equities tips in his favor, and that an injunction is in the public interest."

The second, Hilton v. Braunskill, says that to issue a stay pending appeal, the applicant must make a "strong showing" of likelihood to succeed on the merits, establish whether the applicant would be "irreparably injured absent a stay," and whether a stay would "substantially injure the other parties interested in the proceeding." The court also must weigh "where the public interest lies."

In this case, the ports of the Delaware River, the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority, as the local sponsor, and the Army Corps of Engineers have invested nearly 30 years and millions of dollars in an effort to dredge the shipping channel 5 additional feet.

U.S. District Judge Sue L. Robinson in Wilmington on Jan. 27 denied the State of Delaware's request for an injunction to bar the Corps from starting.

Robinson rejected Delaware's arguments that if the Corps proceeded without a state permit, Delaware would suffer significant and irreparable environmental harm. She also rejected a state's-rights issue - the notion that Delaware would be harmed if its role in regulating waters off its shore were tossed aside.

The judge, while allowing the deepening from 40 to 45 feet to start south of Wilmington, retained control of the project. She enjoined future aspects of the 102.5-mile deepening "until further order of the court."

Environmental groups had then appealed Robinson's ruling. Both Delaware and New Jersey - which has a separate lawsuit against the deepening in federal court in Trenton - had not decided last week whether to appeal to the Third Circuit.

The Army Corps on Tuesday awarded a $24 million deepening contract to Norfolk Dredging Co., of Chesapeake, Va., which said yesterday that the deepening work was "scheduled to start during the first week of March."