DENVER (CN) - Western Watersheds, whose research led to a bill that outlawed "citizen science" in Wyoming, tried to persuade a judge this week to dismiss property owners' lawsuit against it.
Fourteen ranchers sued the environmental group last year, claiming it trespassed on their lands to collect water samples, searching for e. coli. The bacteria, which can cause serious illness in humans, is frequently traced to cattle feces and urine.
In response, Wyoming criminalized collection of "data" on private and public land, without consent of the landowner.
The so-called Data Trespass Bill, which Gov. Matt Mead signed on March 10, punishes violators with up to a year in prison and fines if they trespass to collect ecological data.
Charges can be filed even if the trespass is in national or state parks, and even if it involves merely taking photos or a test tube full of water.
Environmentalists called it truckling to the state's powerful ranchers, who persuaded a complaisant Legislature to outlaw ecological research rather than protect public waters.
Western Watersheds filed a motion to dismiss in December, and a hearing on the motion was held Monday in Fremont County District Court in Lander, presided over by Judge Norman Young.
Western Watersheds said its members never trespassed on private lands to collect their water samples.
The ranchers' attorney Karen Budd-Falen disputes that.
"I feel like we have a very, very strong case for trespass," said Budd-Falen, of Cheyenne. "I'm very confident in that.
"This is a trespass case. We have alleged that the defendants have illegally crossed trespassed across private lands and collected data, and they've crossed them to get public land."
But Jonathan Ratner, Western Watersheds' Wyoming director and a defendant in the rancher's case, said the Wyoming Legislature passed its "Data Trespass Law" to retaliate against him - and that that's nothing new in Wyoming.
"I've had a number of laws passed against me personally," Ratner said.
The first time came when he tried to use a remedy for overgrazing in Wyoming that he had used successfully in Idaho, Ratner said.
"We had great success in actually bidding higher than the ranching industry for state land leases - and not grazing them [in Idaho]," Ratner said. "So we were paying more to not graze them than the grazers were paying to graze them."
But when Ratner tried it in Wyoming, the Legislature cut him short.
"Two weeks after our bids were submitted a state law was passed to basically eliminate our ability to bid on state land leases," Ratner said. "It's beyond comprehension."
The second law established a public enemy for him. Using taxpayer money, Wyoming set up a department to collect data that could discredit other data, Ratner said.
"It was establishing an entity within the Department of Agriculture to essentially use taxpayer money to fund the data collection for private entities. So now taxpayer money goes to supporting individual permittees to collect data to essentially counteract our data."
Statutes 61 and 82 in the Data Trespass Bill are the third and fourth laws passed against him, Ratner said.
Enrolled Act 82, to take effect July 1, allows people to sue trespassers directly. Enrolled Act 61, which has taken effect, requires a prosecutor to do it.
