BATH, Maine (AP) Twenty-five protesters who blocked a busy road outside Bath Iron Works are getting a pass from the district attorney.

District Attorney Natasha Irving announced Thursday said her office won’t prosecute because it wants to focus on “more serious criminal matters” and because giving protesters another forum for “more undue publicity’ would be counterproductive.

The activists were calling on the federal government to spend money to fight climate change instead of building warships. All 25 were charged with obstructing a public way, a misdemeanor.

Bath Police Chief Mike Field said the number of arrests made during the christening of the future USS Lyndon B. Johnson on April 27 was the largest since at least the early 1990s.