The Corps of Engineers also designed a Lake Pontchartrain Hurricane Barrier to shield the city with flood gates like those which protect the Netherlands from the North Sea. Congress provided funding, and construction began in 1971. But the work stopped in 1977 when a federal judge ruled, in a lawsuit brought by the environmental group "Save Our Wetlands", that the Corps' environmental impact statement was deficient. In 1985, after nearly a decade of court battles, the Corps scrapped the plan, and decided to reinforce the existing levee system instead.