BATON ROUGE - A federal judge has agreed to suspend construction of a crude oil pipeline that is being built through a swamp in Louisiana's Cajun country.

  

U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick's order Friday is a victory for environmental groups challenging the Bayou Bridge pipeline project.

  

Dick granted the groups' request for a preliminary injunction halting pipeline construction in the environmentally fragile Atchafalaya Basin until their lawsuit over the project is resolved.

  

The judge's two-page order bars the company that is building the pipeline "from taking any further action on the project" pending a trial on the merits of the case.

  

It wasn't immediately clear if the order is limited to work in the basin or applies to the entire length of the 162-mile-long pipeline from Lake Charles to St. James Parish.