More than a year after a jury awarded a Baton Rouge landman $750,000 in an alleged whistleblower case against the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources, an appeals court has reversed the verdict and ruled in the state agency's favor.

The state 1st Circuit Court of Appeal ruled Friday that Dan Collins and his firm were clearly independent contractors, not DNR employees, so they are not protected by the state's environmental whistleblower law.

The law "is intended to protect employees from adversary action or other adverse action by employers for reporting possible environmental violations," Circuit Judge Mike McDonald wrote for the court.

"We agree with the decision," DNR spokesman Patrick Courreges said Tuesday. "It's what the state has maintained."

Jill Craft, one of Collins' attorneys, said the Louisiana Supreme Court will be asked to reinstate the East Baton Rouge Parish jury's December 2015 verdict.

In his 2010 lawsuit, Collins claimed DNR retaliated against him for reporting a state-funded dredging project that helped landowners develop oil-and-gas leases.

Collins had been under contract to DNR as a land research consultant when he reported his concerns about the Bayou Postillion dredging project in Iberia Parish. His contract with DNR was not renewed for 2010.

He alleged the water quality improvement project was actually a million-dollar, state-funded oil-and-gas access canal project that benefited a family of landowners along the bayou.

The landowners and DNR deny those allegations.

Collins said the dredging violated state and federal environmental laws, but DNR says it complied with environmental regulations and the state procurement law for contracts.

DNR said in a news release Monday that the project, completed in 2005, was successful in increasing water flow through Bayou Postillion to help improve water quality there and in the adjacent swamp. For years, the agency said, the bayou has been filling in with silt. Without action, the bayou would have disappeared.

"As a result, the State and its citizens would have lost the right to use the Bayou at all, along with all its mineral rights under the Bayou, to the adjacent landowners," the department's release states.

The bayou still maintains a width of roughly 75 feet to 200 feet, according to DNR.

Under the land rights agreements for the project, the public is guaranteed the right to use the entire width of the bayou from bank to bank, and the state is guaranteed mineral rights under the bayou ranging from 25 feet to 200 feet, the agency said. 

Local sport and commercial fishermen who use the bayou for access and fishing are pleased with the project's results, DNR added.

Follow Joe Gyan Jr. on Twitter, @JoeGyanJr.