HELENA - The state Livestock Department will try to resolve a lingering dispute with three conservation groups claiming they have been illegally denied access to agency records on bison management, a government attorney said Wednesday.

Norman Peterson, an assistant attorney general, made that promise after District Judge Thomas Honzel rejected the department's primary argument for withholding documents dealing with control of bison wandering from Yellowstone National Park. Honzel said he disagrees with the department's contention that the organizations' pending federal lawsuit over state-federal bison management practices precludes them from getting access to the requested files.

While the state suggests the federal case trumps the public's right to know guaranteed in the Montana Constitution, "I don't think that it does," he said. Should the two sides be unable to reach agreement, another hearing is set for May 9 on whether the department has acted legally in responding to the requests from Cold Mountain, Cold Rivers; The Ecology Center Inc.; and Buffalo Field Campaign.

Peterson said the department needs time to retrieve the requested records and to determine if any of them may be considered confidential. But he told Honzel that within a week he may be able to determine a date for the groups to inspect and copy documents.

"I don't think there's any question that members of the plaintiff's organizations have a right to inspect public documents," Honzel said. "I think the department has an obligation to make its documents open for inspection for whatever reason."

The three groups' request was submitted almost 13 months ago. It sought files describing activities involving bison and bald eagles in areas where the bison leave the park and come under control of a joint management plan. The groups want records on use of helicopters to haze bison, and records on the operation of a bison capture facility.

Peterson argued that the request was a "backdoor tactic" to obtain information the organizations want to use in a federal lawsuit challenging the bison management practices. He said the groups do not want to try getting the documents as part of the usual information-gathering process used in suits, called "discovery."

"The question is not whether they have a (constitutional) right to know, but whether they can use this court to intrude on the federal discovery process," he said.

Brenda Lindlief Hall, attorney for the conservation groups, said her clients are seeking information that goes beyond the issues raised in the federal suit. "This is not a test case to do an end run around the federal discovery process," she said. "This case squarely comes back to ... my clients' right to know."

She said the state agency has rebuffed repeated requests to look at public records and Honzel should put a stop to that. "The Montana Constitution provides a fundamental right É to my clients to come in and inspect and copy all documents where no privacy right has been asserted," Hall said.

If the groups' request was confined to the documents cited in their original letter, Peterson said, the department would try to accommodate that. He suggested the agency may have misunderstood the organizations as demanding every record having anything to do with bison management. The state is involved with federal agencies in managing bison as they leave Yellowstone in search of winter forage, because of concerns that the animals may spread brucellosis to cattle if allowed to roam outside the park. Brucellosis, a contagious disease widespread in Yellowstone's bison and elk herds, causes cattle to abort and can result in undulant fever in humans.

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