A controversial oyster aquaculture project in Milford Haven can go forward after a pre-trial pleading in Gloucester Circuit Court on Friday.

Judge Jeffrey W. Shaw refused to grant appellants David, Tristan and Rosalie Judson and 60 additional signatories their request to order Wade to wait until after trial before he begins deploying 700 floating oyster cages above 5.5 acres of oyster bottom, anchored by concrete weights.

Shaw, however, told Kevin Wade of Island Seafood he was troubled by the fact that one of Wade’s partners in the project is a Maryland resident.

“With a Maryland resident, I see a basis for reversible error,” he said.

Attorney Norman Thomas of Richmond, representing the Judsons and the other signatories in a suit filed in Mathews County Circuit on  Nov. 27 appealing VMRC’s decision to grant a permit for the aquaculture project, had argued in his written pleading that Virginia law prohibits out-of-state residents from “planting, ta...