GULF SHORES, AL — Charley Grimsley’s pretty sure he knows what BP stands for in relation to Alabama and the Gulf of Mexico.

“BP does not stand for Bentley’s Pocket,” Grimsley said via a social media post. He is the former director of the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources and part of his duties as director was to oversee Alabama’s 22 state parks.

He filed a suit on April 8 seeking to halt construction of a new lodge and conference center in Gulf State Park, one Gov. Robert Bentley’s rebuilding with money from BP.

The way Grimsley sees it, money coming from BP into state coffers is exactly the same as taxpayer dollars coming into the state’s coffers.

“BP paid the State of Alabama for destroying public assets,” Grimsley said.

His lawsuit against the project, and using money to renovate the once-dilapidated governor’s mansion in Fort Morgan, has hit a snag.

“Sadly today a Montgomery County judge ruled that the monies BP paid for destroying public assets are not public funds,” Grimsley said. “Hence we as taxpayers have no standing to question Gov. Bentley for taking this money and building a four-star hotel and renovating the governor's beach mansion.”

A circuit judge in Montgomery County, Truman Hobbs, issued a July 6 ruling saying Charles Grimsley lacks standing to proceed with the lawsuit because the money came from BP, not taxpayers.

"Courts have refused to confer taxpayer standing upon citizens when the source of the funds was from the federal government or private entities," Hobbs wrote in his ruling.

But that fight, Grimsley says, is long from being over even as construction on the beach in Gulf Shores continues to move forward.

“This is just one battle in a never ending war for justice for the right of average Alabamians to continue to affordably enjoy their state parks and to keep politicians from using the people’s money as their own personal piggy banks,” he said. “The war is not over.”

Bentley’s office sent out an email to media saying the project would be a benefit for all the citizens of Alabama.

"The new lodge and convention center will keep conventions in the state of Alabama, bringing in millions of dollars to our state and creating more jobs,” Bentley said. “The money that is generated from this facility will help revitalize other state parks throughout the state.”

Grimsley first filed his suit on April 8 saying Bentley violated a 2013 directive from the state legislature on how the money from BP was to be spent.

Grimsley claims that the Gulf State Park Project Act passed in 2013, the lawsuit states, the state could only use funds from National Resource Damage Assessment funds or from RESTORE Act money. It further states if that money is unavailable after Dec. 31 then the act would automatically be repealed on Jan. 1 of this year.

The state was awarded about $85 million in NRDA funds for the project, but that is also being challenged in another lawsuit. The bulk, $58.5 million, was earmarked to build a new on-beach facility Bentley was at first calling a hotel and convention center.

More than $27 million is allocated for a series of environmental improvements throughout the park including a research and education facility for students, trails and dune restoration.

A federal judge in Mobile earlier ruled the state couldn’t use National Resource Damage Assessment funds on the project saying that money had to be used for environmental concerns, not a hotel.

The state and Bentley argued the loss of human use of the beachfront warrants the NRDA money’s use on the project.

Federal Senior District Judge Charles R. Butler’s office issued a ruling blocking the expenditure of $58.5 million in National Resource Damage Assessment money to build a lodge in Gulf State Park in Gulf Shores.

The suit against NOAA and its parent agency, the Department of the Interior, says NRDA funds should be used for environmental restoration in the wake of the BP oil spill and not rebuilding a hotel that was destroyed in a hurricane in 2004.

Arguments for both sides were presented to Butler in Mobile on Jan. 26 and Butler emailed to media outlets on Feb. 16.