A Natrona County district court judge will issue an order by mid-October to resolve a dispute between landowners west of Casper and the Wyoming Game and Fish Department about the meaning of an easement allowing access to the North Platte River, attorneys said.

"Our clients don't dispute the access, it's just what the terms of the access are," said Maggie Allely with the Cheyenne firm of Hageman & Brighton.

But the Game and Fish Department has responded the 45-year-old easement at the Lusby access 25 miles west of Casper always has allowed recreationists the ability to use the river regardless of its depth, Wyoming Assistant Attorney General Levi Martin said Tuesday.

Hageman and Martin filed cross motions for summary judgment -- each side claiming the other had no valid case in terms of the facts or the law -- and District Judge David Park heard their oral arguments on Sept. 21.

Park took the case under advisement and told the attorneys he would issue an order in about three weeks.

Access has been in dispute since last year when the landowners -- Corey and Kathryn Davison, Ronald and Stacey Richner, Michael Rempe, and Marton Ranch Inc. -- posted "No Trespassing" signs.

The Game and Fish Department responded with a sign of its own and a press release stating the area was still open.

The landowners claim the 1964 Lusby easement grants access to the river 100 feet from the river's high water mark and only at the high water mark, according to their attorney, Harriet Hageman. When the river is down, the dry land between the high water mark and the middle of the river is the landowners' private property and cannot be trespassed upon, she has argued.

Allely, speaking for Hageman, said the Lusby easement is clear and unambiguous about the high water mark.

"We want the Game and Fish Department to enforce the easement as written," Allely said Tuesday.

The Game and Fish Commission and Department, however, believes the easement does not specifically describe the streamside boundary -- it describes a line and not an area -- but it does indicate that it was given to permit fishing and hunting "on the North Platte River," according to Martin.

"You've got to look at the reason for the purposes of the easement," he said. "Everything outside of this leads to the absolute conclusion that the intent of the easement is to allow access to the middle of the river."

In other words, the literal application of the Lusby easement would mean people could access the middle of the river only by throwing their boat across the dry land, Martin said.

The state also has claimed Lusby is a "prescriptive easement" meaning people have the right to use an easement if they've been doing it openly for 10 years and no one has objected, he said.

However, Allely responded the Game and Fish Department's own regulations do not entitle it to use the prescriptive easement argument.

Reach Tom Morton at (307) 266-0592, or at tom.morton@trib.com. Read his blog at tribtown.trib.com/TomMorton/blog