Opponents of Ottawa's plan to expropriate a piece of British Columbia territory have lost a key court battle.

A judge in Vancouver ruled that the takeover of the Nanoose Bay weapons testing range, off Vancouver Island was handled correctly.

The seabed off Vancouver Island and the weapons testing range at Nanoose Bay officially became the property of the federal government on Friday. But a coalition of groups was in court on Tuesday to try to undo the expropriation process.

The groups, which include human rights organizations and churches are backing B.C.'s position that Nanoose Bay should be a nuclear free zone -- out of bounds to any American ship with a reactor or nuclear weapons on board.

But the judge dismissed their claim on a technicality, saying once Ottawa had title to the land, it was too late to do anything about it.

The group is promising to fight on - possibly all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada.

The British Columbia government plans to make arguments of its own when it takes its challenge to the expropriation to court later this winter.

But as far as Ottawa and the Canadian military are concerned this unprecendented episode in federal-provincial relations is over and they've won the battle.

The arrival of an American Orion aircraft on Tuesday marked the reopening of the Nanoose facility for torpedo testing.