Colorado’s troubled conservation easement program was a “bait-and-switch scheme” that violated due process and the U.S. Constitution, hundreds of the program’s former participants allege.

Landowners United Advocacy Foundation Inc., a group representing hundreds of Colorado farmers and ranchers, filed a federal lawsuit against the Colorado Department of Revenue and state officials’ management and enforcement of conservation easements.

They allege the state deprived them of lawful tax credits, undermined the administration of the conservation easement program, devalued land and caused financial devastation.

The lawsuit was reported first by the Sterling Journal-Advocate.

“There’s multiple layers of harm that happened here,” said Dori Richards, an attorney for the Albuquerque, N.M.-based Western Agriculture Resources and Business Advocates LLP, which is representing the landowners group. “And everyone has been left by the wayside, except for the Department of Revenue.”

The Colorado Attorney General’s office and the Department of Revenue do not comment on ongoing litigation.

Colorado’s conservation easement program allows property owners to donate land to a nonprofit or governmental entity to be preserved for purposes such as natural habitat protection or public benefit. In return, the landowners receive tax credits that could be used or sold to a third party.

The program fell into disarray amid fraudulent schemes and overvaluations of properties. In the state’s attempt to right the ship, hundreds of credits were disallowed.

Dirt-rich and cash-poor farmers and ranchers were collateral damage, members and representatives of the landowners group claim.

“It has hurt the economy of southeastern Colorado terribly,” said J.D. Wright, an Olney Springs resident and president of the nonprofit Landowners United Advocacy Foundation. A legal battle “may be a long, dirty mess, but it’s been that way already. I feel like the thing to do is push on.”

The federal suit has been years in the making, said Wright, who also headed Land Owners United LLC, which represented nearly 100 landowners who challenged the state during the easement program restructuring.

More than 300 landowners are part of Landowners United Advocacy Foundation, which enlisted Richards, who was formerly with the U.S. Department of Interior.

The plaintiffs include Logan County landowners Alan and Julie Gentz,

who sued the state last year challenging a conservation-easement ruling and tax bill filed against them. The Journal-Advocate has closely followed the Gentzes’ situation.

“Just enough people finally were so disgusted and so hurt that they agreed to back the lawsuit,” Wright said.

The lawsuit was filed a month after state lawmakers tabled a bill that could have prevented the state from challenging land appraisals. A second conservation-easement bill, which could cancel interest and penalties on the cases in dispute, was recently amended by the House Committee on Finance.

The purpose of the Landowners United Advocacy Foundation suit is to seek a declaration of rights and to determine liability, Richards said. The ruling could then set the stage for individual parties to file lawsuits against the state to recover financial losses, she said.

“When folks start to read what happened and read their own constitution, they will say, ‘Gosh, we hurt a lot of really good, innocent people who wanted to do the right thing,’ ” she said.

Alicia Wallace: 303-954-1939, awallace@denverpost.com or @aliciawallace