LA JOLLA, Calif. -- The California Supreme Court ruled on the fate of the Children's Pool in La Jolla.

The court decided to let stand a lower court ruling requiring the city to dredge the Children's Cove and return it to the children for whom it was intended. The ruling requires the city to dredge the sand, that is now home to a colony of harbor seals. The area must be made sanitary for human use.

The lower court ruling was based on a lawsuit over the 1931 trust agreement which gave control of the beach from the state to the city to maintain it as a children's pool. The agreement requires the city, as the property's landlord, to maintain the cove as a swimming beach for children. The suit sought to end the cove's use as a protected seal habitat.

The city must restore the beach and stop barring humans from using it -- even during the seal's pupping season, which begins soon.