Resistance Radio: Community Rights

There has been ongoing resistance to fracking in eastern Boulder County. Since the moratorium on fracking expired, we’ve seen oil and gas companies apply for permits. We’ve also seen local resistance to this increasing.

Thomas Linzey, legal counsel and Executive Director of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund will participate in a town hall meeting happening at the Lafayette Public Library on Monday March 5th. It will also be an official assembly of the Lafayette City Council. Members of the public are invited to attend as Linzey and local resistors discuss a rights-based legal defense against oil and gas drilling.

The CELDF has worked with city councils and local governments around the country with communities working to regulate or ban fracking. But Linzey says this meeting with the Lafayette City Council is unique as they have been reluctant thus far to involve the community.

“In the adoption of the first citizen’s charter amendment in Lafayette Colorado that happened a number of years ago, the city council was resistant to allowing residents of the community to actually participate in the lawsuit when they were sued by oil and gas interests, and so I think that it’s a positive sign that city council want to meet.”

On March 21, 2017, the City of Lafayette approved the Lafayette Climate Bill of Rights , an ordinance that Linzey says reflects the demands of a growing number of residents across economic and party lines. But he says the city council is yet to implement it, and that is one of the reasons behind his visit.

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