Colorado Supreme Court to hear Longmont, Fort Collins fracking appeals Wednesday

DENVER — The Colorado Supreme Court on Wednesday will hear oral arguments both on Longmont’s fracking ban and Fort Collins’ five-year moratorium.

Decisions on the two cases, likely to come out next year, will have a major impact on determining how much authority, if any, cities in Colorado have to ban hydraulic fracturing, which involves pumping water mixed with sand and chemicals into a drilled hole to retrieve oil and natural gas from shale deep underground.

The Longmont case will be heard at 9 a.m. at the Ralph L. Carr Colorado Judicial Center, 2 E. 14thAve., in Denver, with the Fort Collins case to be heard at 10 a.m. Both sides in each case will have 30 minutes to make their arguments.

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The Longmont case concerns a 2012 voter-imposed ban on fracking, while Fort Collins’ case covers a five-year moratorium placed on fracking by that city’s voters in 2013. Both bans were struck down by district court judges in Boulder and Larimer counties, with those courts concluding that the resolutions were pre-empted by state law.

Both cities appealed, and the Colorado Court of Appeals earlier this year asked the state’s high court to hear the cases rather than considering them itself due to the high amount of public interest in the cases given the oil and gas industry’s role in the Colorado economy. With a number of other cities trying to limit or ban fracking within their city limits and the potential for more such cases, the appeals court felt it wise for the Supreme Court to weigh in.