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COLUMBIA -- Three state environmental groups on Tuesday filed a federal lawsuit to block a proposed $150 million bridge project pushed by U.S. Rep. James Clyburn, calling the project a "poster child of wasteful Department of Transportation spending."

The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Columbia against the South Carolina DOT, DOT Executive Director Elizabeth Mabry and the Federal Highway Administration.

Pete Poore, a spokesman for DOT, said the agency does not comment on pending litigation. But he said that officials now estimate the project's cost to be $150 million, an increase of $50 million over previous estimates.

Clyburn said he doesn't believe the groups are trying to protect the environment. "Absolutely not," he told reporters in a conference call.

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He said he met with representatives of environmental groups years ago and told them if the official environmental study concluded the project would harm or pose a threat to the environment he would abandon his support. He said he asked them if they would support the project if the study found no harm or threat.

"At that moment, the silence from those people was deafening," he said. "Not a single one of them would open their mouths. I concluded from that their agenda was not about protecting the environment.

"They already had a pre-conceived notion about this and no amount of facts were going to get in the way."

Lawyers with the Southern Environmental Law Center, which filed the suit on behalf of the three groups, charged that the project would provide no substantive transportation improvement or economic development. They said the area through which the 9.6-mile road and bridge is planned is a wildlife "crown jewel" that should not be disturbed.

"The bottom line of this complaint is SCDOT is pushing a wasteful, destructive project while turning a blind eye to the project's impacts and true costs, and ignoring legitimate transportation needs in the area," said Blan Holman, senior attorney for the group.

The bridge would span the Upper Santee Swamp, at the edge of Lake Marion, connecting two communities in Calhoun and Clarendon counties.

Gov. Mark Sanford has been critical of the project, saying the money could be better spent on other transportation needs in the area.

Clyburn has argued the project is an important economic development tool for the area and could ultimately help improve funding to local schools. He said the project is just one piece of the economic "puzzle" for development of the region.

Clyburn said environmental lawsuits are filed in low-income areas, while developers used mitigation in high-income areas. He said developers are interested now in the land around the lake.

Lawyers for the law center said the state's own studies have shown the project will only cut the driving time between Orangeburg and Sumter by 3 to 10 minutes. They also alleged that the state's environmental impact statement was "thoroughly deficient."

"The proposed connector would degrade and destroy significant natural resources in one of the largest remaining wildlife habitats in South Carolina, while serving no demonstrated transportation purpose," the 24-page suit alleges.

David Farren, another law center attorney, told reporters Tuesday that DOT has $57 billion in transportation priority projects identified over the next 20 years but only $11 billion to pay for them.

"SCDOT has a responsibility to focus on legitimate safety, maintenance and capacity needs before it wastes taxpayer money on a project that isn't needed," Farren said.

He said lawmakers need to reform the way the DOT goes about selecting projects.

The suit is being filed on behalf of the South Carolina Wildlife Federation, the South Carolina Coastal Conservation League and the Audubon Society of South Carolina.