LITTLE ROCK—A federal judge has awarded $7.3 million to the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission in a lawsuit it filed against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers over dead and dying timber.

Judge Charles F. Lettow of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington, D.C., sided with the commission in a 61-page order over the timber losses in Clay, Greene and Randolph counties in northeastern Arkansas. The 2005 lawsuit alleged that the Corps’ management of water from the Black River and Missouri’s Clearwater Lake caused millions of dollars in damage to bottomland hardwood timber in the Dave Donaldson Black River Wildlife Management Area, which covers about 24,000 acres in the three counties.

Lettow issued the ruling Wednesday after presiding over an 11-day trial in December.

The commission had sought about $20 million in damages.

“We didn’t get every bit of our requested damages,” lawyer Julie Greathouse, who helped represent the commission, said in a statement. The court found that the commission was entitled to a judgment to restore areas where timber had died, Greathouse said, and awarded it costs to restore the most severely damaged areas. However, the judge did not award requested damages “for restoration of lesser-impacted areas.”