Colorado
Colorado Supreme Court rules that Boulder’s lawsuit against Exxon and Suncor can proceed
The Colorado Supreme Court ruled Monday that a lawsuit filed by the City of Boulder and Boulder County against energy companies Exxon Mobil and Suncor Energy can move forward.
The city and county argue in the ongoing lawsuit from 2018 that the companies are knowingly and willfully harming the planet and people through fossil fuel emissions, which the city and county say violates the Clean Air Act. The state Supreme Court agreed with Boulder in a 5-2 split.
Chief Justice Monica Márquez and Justices William Hood, Melissa Hart, Richard Gabriel, and Maria Berkenkotter joined the opinion of the city and county that the case should be allowed to continue in state court, while Justices Carlos Samour and Brian Boatright dissented, saying the case should be handled in federal court.
“We now conclude that Boulder’s claims are not preempted by federal law and, therefore, the district court did not err in declining to dismiss those claims,” Gabriel wrote in his ruling.
“This ruling affirms what we’ve known all along: corporations cannot mislead the public and avoid accountability for the damages they have caused,” Boulder Mayor Aaron Brockett said in a statement. “Our community has suffered significantly from the consequences of climate change, and today’s decision brings us one step closer to justice and the resources we need to protect our future.”
A phone message was left for an Exxon Mobil representative, and an email was sent to Suncor seeking comment Monday afternoon.
Attorneys for the energy companies, however, previously said that fossil fuels are a necessity and one of many things that impact climate change.
“Dealing with climate change not only has to be uniform across the country, but it has to be something that we deal with internationally,” said Phil Goldberg, special counsel to the Manufacturers Accountability Project.
The Manufacturers Accountability Project — a legal advocacy project of the National Association of Manufacturers, which is supporting the energy companies in court — argues the U.S. Supreme Court should take on all these lawsuits by state and local governments, arguing that these issues are regulated by federal law and that the U.S. Supreme Court court already set legal precedent in these types of cases. Samour and Boatright are the only two state Supreme Court justices who agreed.
“Boulder’s damages claims against Exxon Mobil Corporation and three Suncor Energy companies (collectively, “the energy companies”) are based on harms the State of Colorado has allegedly suffered as a result of global climate change,” Samour wrote, in part, in his dissenting opinion. “I am concerned that permitting Boulder to proceed with its claims will interfere with both our federal government’s regulation of interstate air pollution and our federal government’s foreign policies regarding air pollution.”
The Boulder lawsuit is one of several similar lawsuits around the country. While courts in New York, New Jersey, and Maryland have dismissed the cases, the Hawaii Supreme Court gave the green light to a Honolulu lawsuit, and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review the decision, keeping that case in state court.
The U.S. Envionmental Protection Agency last year told Colorado public health officials they needed to get tougher on Suncor, which was fined over $10 million for air quality reporting violations.
Marco Simons, an attorney who argued the case for the Boulder plaintiffs, said in a statement that federal law doesn’t prevent any state or local community from seeking damages from companies those communities say harm them.
“This lawsuit is based on a fundamental legal principle: you have to pay your fair share for the harm that you cause,” he said. “Nothing in federal law stops Colorado courts from applying that principle to the fossil fuel industry’s deception about climate change and their knowing alteration of our climate, as the Colorado Supreme Court has now found.”
You can read the Colorado Supreme Court justices’ full opinions here:
Colorado
Kids escape unscathed after van slips off Colorado mountain road and down Blue River embankment
A van carrying campers from a hike near Blue River rolled down an embankment Thursday afternoon, but everyone inside escaped without major injuries. According to the Keystone Science School, the 15-passenger van was transporting 13 campers and two adults back from Mohawk Lakes when it slid off a wet road and rolled over.
Emergency crews responded to Spruce Creek Road after receiving reports of a single-vehicle rollover.
“We’re fortunate that it was low speed, and there was no intrusion into the passenger cabin,” Matt Benedict, division chief of wildfire and community preparedness for Red, White and Blue Fire said.
Investigators believe muddy conditions created by recent rainfall contributed to the crash. The van rolled down a steep embankment before coming to rest against a tree. Two people suffered minor injuries, but neither required transportation to a hospital, according to fire officials.
Keystone Science School confirmed emergency responders arrived quickly and that no major injuries were reported.
“The safety and well-being of our campers and staff is our highest priority,” Executive Director Eric Rightor said in a statement. “We are grateful that there were no major injuries, and we are committed to fully supporting all those involved and their families.”
Fire officials also credited seatbelt use for helping protect those inside the vehicle. “We always encourage everyone to wear their seatbelts… and they did. And everybody left,” Benedict said.
The Keystone Science School is located in Summit County.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) — Two weeks have passed since officials closed four blocks of Uintah Street to repair damage under a bridge over Shooks Run Creek, and we’re now learning specifics about the response.
Officials said that the city was the lead entity in the repair response, with Colorado Springs Utilities (CSU) providing a supporting role.
The closure began late in the afternoon of June 10 for what officials described as emergency bridge and utility repairs between Prospect and Institute streets, east of the Colorado College campus.
Officials said that on the previous day, a routine bridge inspection by the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) discovered a large “void,” or sinkhole, under the bridge that compromised a utility line.
But officials didn’t explain how the void developed or how they repaired it until earlier this week, when Richard Mulledy, the city’s public works director, elaborated on the situation.
“It was about a six-foot by eight-foot void,” he explained. “That void was really caused by an abandoned storm sewer line and then a leaking manhole. It’s something that we see from time to time, but really doesn’t happen often.”
Crews approached the problem from under and above the bridge, with workers excavating into the street to access the utility lines.
“The utility line being compromised was an active storm sewer line,” Mulledy said. “It was sort of hanging out in the open and was unsecured. The old storm sewer line had been abandoned for decades and was starting to fail.”
Crews removed the old stormwater pipe, repaired the manhole, and backfilled the void with a material called “flow.”
“Flow fills almost like a kind of liquid concrete,” Mulledy detailed. “And that’s a really great structural solution. So, we filled that entire thing up, made sure the void is closed, and made sure it’s structurally sound.”
He added that the bridge is around a century old, the same age as most bridges across the creek.
“This was identified and got fixed in 48 hours, rather than let something structural fail, and then we’d be in a big, giant construction project,” Mulledy said. “The structure itself, I don’t think, was ever really threatened.”
The closure ended on Saturday, June 13.
A Colorado man died on Tuesday when a boulder fell on him and crushed him. That’s according to the Chaffee County Sheriff’s Office, who identified the man as 59-year-old Paul Frasch.
Frasch is a resident of Silverthorne. The sheriff’s office says he was walking in an area along the Arkansas River in Buena Vista in the middle of the day with his coworker when rocks fell and hit him.
According to investigators, the boulder that landed on Frasch weighed at least 1,000 pounds.
The coworker received injuries to his arms after trying to help Frasch.
When first responders got to the scene, the boulder was still on top of Frasch. He was declared dead at the scene.
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