MADISON (AP) — Officials in southwestern Wisconsin have dropped a resolution warning journalists they would face prosecution if they edited an upcoming news release.

The Lafayette County Land Conservation Committee was set to vote on the resolution at an emergency meeting Nov. 12. But the county’s attorney, Nathan Russell, said Nov. 11 that the meeting wouldn’t happen and he didn’t believe the resolution would come before any county committee “in the near future.”

The resolution centered on the upcoming release of findings from a water quality study in Grant, Iowa and Lafayette counties.

Russell says the counties can protect the study’s “integrity” without a resolution.

The resolution called for the county chairmen, county conservationists and the Lafayette County Conservation Committee chairman to craft a news release on the findings. Journalists who altered or edited the release would be prosecuted.

At least one Wisconsin county official warned any journalists who covered the study: Publish the county’s news release summarizing the findings in its entirety without any alterations or risk criminal prosecution.

It isn’t clear which committee member or members wrote the resolution or whether they sought legal advice before proposing it, but the effort looked blatantly unconstitutional, according to experts in media law.

“All I can say is: Wow,” UW-Madison journalism instructor Kathleen Bartzen Culver said in an email to The Associated Press. “I am astonished that a local government would find it appropriate, much less legal, to threaten a news organization with prosecution for doing what they are constitutionally protected in doing — representing the public interest by seeking, analyzing and reporting information.

“For the life of me, I’m struggling to envision under what statute a journalist would be prosecuted for covering water test results released by local government.”

Federal and state researchers have been working on a joint study measuring contamination in private wells in Grant, Iowa and Lafayette Counties. They released results in August that found that 32 of 35 tested wells — or 91% — contained human or livestock fecal matter.

County officials were upset by news reports that they felt wrongly conveyed that 91% of all wells in the region were contaminated, said Lafayette County Board member Kriss Marion. The researchers are expected to release another round of results soon.

Marion said the conservation committee’s resolution suddenly appeared in the county clerk’s office on Thursday, Nov. 7. The resolution stated that the August results were leaked and it accused the media of slandering southwestern Wisconsin.

As a result, before it was retracted, the resolution said that only the county chairman would be allowed to talk to the media about future test results. 

“Under no circumstances is the media allowed to glean information and selectively report it in order to interpret the results for their own means,” the resolution stated.

The resolution didn’t cite what law the noncompliant news outlets would be prosecuted under. 

Marion, who is also a member of the conservation committee, posted the resolution on her Facebook page in an effort to draw attention to it. She said it’s unclear who authored the resolution. 

“I object to this on so many levels,” Marion said prior to the planned committee vote being cancelled. “It’s all nonsense.”