Benjamin Abbott, assistant plant and wildlife sciences professor at BYU, announced at a press conference Tuesday that he has filed a countersuit against Lake Restoration Solutions.

Abbott has filed his countersuit under Utah’s anti-SLAPP laws, laws made to prevent the use of courts, and the threat of a potential lawsuit, to dissuade individuals from exercising their First Amendment rights.

“A vibrant, free society depends on the open exchange of ideas, transparency in government, reliable information, and freedom of speech. Public disagreement and hard questions are needed at every step of big decisions about our community,” Abbott said. “I’m hard-pressed to think of a bigger decision than the future of Utah Lake.”

Lake Restoration Solutions is the proponent of the Utah Lake Restoration Project, a proposal to dredge a portion of Utah Lake in order to create islands for mixed commercial, recreational, and estuary use.

LRS claims that dredging the lake and forming man-made islands will help to restore Utah Lake, however, the company has yet to publicly release the NEPA application that contains the data to back that claim.

LRS filed a complaint in the Third Judicial District Court against Abbott on Jan. 10, claiming defamation, false light and intentional interference with prospective economic relations. The suit cited posts from Abbott’s personal social media accounts and blog that reference the Utah Lake Restoration Project, calling the statements, “deliberate mischaracterizations and defamatory.”

“Notably, we do not ask him [Abbott] to stop participating in the public process or sharing his criticisms and opinions about the Project,” reads a statement sent to the Daily Herald from Jon Benson, president of LRS. “He has every right to do so, and we have no desire to prevent him from exercising that right. The complaint focuses solely on his defamatory and false statements”

However, Whit Krogue, an attorney representing Abbott, expressed concern for the impact that the LRS lawsuit could have on the public’s willingness to engage in free speech surrounding the Utah Lake Restoration Project.

“Freedom of speech is so fundamental to our society and to our government, and it is at its strongest and broadest when we’re talking about issues of public concern,” Krogue said. “This is an issue of huge public concern. Now we think that everything professor Abbott said was true or substantially true, and that’s really the standard that we’re talking about when we’re talking about defamation.”

According to Krogue, Abbott’s legal counsel has also filed discovery requests that they believe will enable them to prove that what LRS claimed as false and defamatory statements were actually true.

“Either way, what professor Abbott said was privileged,” Krogue said. “Professor Abbott was speaking in good faith on a matter of public concern.”