Trial-level state Supreme Court judges have upheld bans that were challenged in the rural central New York towns of Dryden and Middlefield.

WSJ: NY appeals court to consider local fracking bans

Appeals of the Dryden and Middlefield decisions will be argued before the Appellate Division of the state Supreme Court in Albany on Thursday.

WSJ: 3rd NY town wins in court over fracking ban

He cited Court of Appeals precedents as well as decisions in favor of local bans in the upstate towns of Dryden and Middlefield.

WSJ: 3rd NY town wins in court over fracking ban

"I did train as a modernist, " he explains, patient and bemused at being questioned about Modernism alive and well in the landscape at Middlefield.

WSJ: Modern Pastoral

In the Middlefield case, dairy farmer Jennifer Huntington, owner of Cooperstown Holstein, is appealing the ruling of a state Supreme Court judge in Otsego County upholding the town's drilling ban.

WSJ: NY appeals court to consider local fracking bans

Paul Watson, acting headteacher, Middlefield School, Gainsborough, Middlesex.

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Shaun Goho, an environmental lawyer and instructor at Harvard Law School who is not directly involved in the Dryden and Middlefield cases, said local ordinances related to oil and gas drilling have been common for years in many states, including Texas and Colorado.

WSJ: NY appeals court to consider local fracking bans

The most significant feature of Nevins's garden at Middlefield is the hornbeam room, entered as one moves up a flight of stone-and-grass steps toward a bench set on axis with what is the beating heart of any country house in summer, the well-used and much-loved screened porch.

WSJ: Modern Pastoral

"One by one, the courts in New York are siding with the people over oil and gas industry interests, ruling that local municipalities have the right to decide what industrial activities are appropriate for their communities, " said Deborah Goldberg, attorney for the environmental group Earthjustice who will argue on behalf of Dryden and Middlefield in Albany on Thursday.

WSJ: 3rd NY town wins in court over fracking ban