Karen Dike — a board member on the local group Our Health, Our Future, Our Longmont — asked the Longmont City Council on Tuesday to consider a one-year moratorium on hydraulic fracturing.
Dike said Longmont residents demand the council enact a moratorium because the oil and gas regulations that survived a lawsuit were written in 2012 and are now out of date.
Longmont became embroiled in two separate lawsuits related to oil and gas or fracking. The city-enacted rules and regulations require an operation to be 750 feet from an occupied building. Citizens, who thought the city-enacted regulations didn’t go far enough, voted a ban on fracking within city limits into Longmont law in 2012.
The industry sued Longmont on both measures. The city settled the oil and gas regulations lawsuit as part of a compromise between fracking activists and Gov. John Hickenlooper. Longmont took the fracking-ban lawsuit to the Colorado Supreme Court, where the judges ruled that Longmont has no right to ban the practice within city limits.
Council members took no action and were mixed in their reaction to Dike’s request. Councilwoman Polly Christensen called the proposal an “interesting idea.” Councilman Gabe Santos said the state supreme court has already ruled on the issue. Councilwoman Bonnie Finley saw no need to update the city’s regulations. Councilman Jeff Moore said the city should deal with minor details in the regulations and Councilwoman Joan Peck said the city should examine its regulations to make sure they keep up with state standards.
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