Colorado fought for decades to protect the Roan Plateau; we have to defend against drilling again

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is offering 4,645 acres atop the Roan Plateau for oil and gas leasing in its December sale. The proposal puts lands back on the leasing table that Coloradans spent decades working to protect, and it comes at a time when the BLM is already dramatically accelerating oil and gas leasing across Colorado and the West.

The Roan Plateau is a treasured area that should be off-limits to development.

High above the Colorado River Valley near Rifle and Parachute, the Roan Plateau is a place defined by vast wildlands, clean water and iconic wildlife.

Rising more than 3,000 feet above the valley, the plateau opens into forests, sagebrush, mountain meadows, streams and miles of backcountry. For generations, people have come here to hunt elk and mule deer, fish for native trout, camp, hike and experience the freedom of being in a place that still feels truly wild.

It is also a place Coloradans have fought hard to protect.

For more than two decades, hunters and anglers, local communities, conservationists, businesses, elected officials and public land managers worked through one of the most contentious public lands fights in Colorado history. They helped secure a future for the Roan that protected its extraordinary wildlife, clean water and backcountry, while allowing energy development in the surrounding region.

Now, the federal government has reignited a fight many believed was finally settled.

The Roan is one of the most biologically rich landscapes in Colorado. 

Its forests, meadows and sagebrush provide important habitat for some of the state’s largest elk and mule deer herds, along with black bears, mountain lions, greater sage grouse and other wildlife. Its streams support native Colorado River cutthroat trout. Rare plants grow here that are found in few other places, or nowhere else in the world.

Water is another critical aspect of the Roan. Several streams atop the plateau are protected as Outstanding Waters, the highest level of water quality protection available under Colorado law. In 2024, Colorado added the East Fork of Parachute Creek and its tributaries to that list because of their exceptional ecological and recreational value. That watershed overlaps with lands now being considered for oil and gas leasing.

The plateau is also home to remarkable hanging gardens, where year-round water supports unique plant communities, including hanging garden sullivantia, a species found only in Colorado.

The BLM has identified more than 20,000 acres of wilderness-quality lands atop the plateau — values that must be protected.

In 2008, the federal government auctioned more than 50,000 acres of the Roan Plateau for oil and gas development, sparking one of Colorado’s longest and most contentious public lands fights. Serious concerns were raised about what industrial development could mean for wildlife, water and the largely undeveloped top of the plateau. A breakthrough came in 2014, when a settlement canceled most of the contested leases and helped lead to a new BLM management plan. The 2016 plan closed the top of the Roan to future leasing except for two remaining leases.

Those final leases were relinquished in 2024, leaving the public lands on the top of the Roan free of oil and gas leases for the first time in decades.

It was a hard-won compromise that showed Colorado did not have to choose between conservation and energy development.

Over the past decade, the State of Colorado, the BLM and community partners have continued investing in the health of the plateau, restoring wildlife habitat, removing obsolete fencing, improving grazing and working to strengthen native fisheries, including establishing a refuge for a genetically unique strain of Colorado River cutthroat trout.

New biological inventories have also identified additional rare plants, sensitive wildlife and high-value habitat that were not fully understood when earlier management decisions were made.

All of that work makes the decision to put these lands back on the leasing table particularly hard to understand.

The Roan proposal is part of a much bigger change happening across America’s public lands.

The administration and Congress have put oil and gas leasing on the fast track. New federal requirements mandate frequent lease sales across Western states, make it easier for the oil and gas industry to nominate and lease public lands and limit some of the discretion land managers previously had over when and where leasing occurs.

In Colorado, the effects are already clear. The BLM offered nearly 200,000 acres across the Western Slope in its recent lease sales — more acreage than had been offered in Colorado during the previous four years combined. Another 126,744 acres are proposed in this concerning December lease sale — including the 4,645 acresof concern atop the Roan.

That was part of the lesson of the original Roan Plateau fight.

Colorado found a way to allow energy development to continue while recognizing that some places have wildlife, water, recreation and other values that should remain protected.

The case for making that choice on the Roan is even stronger today.

The BLM has the ability to pull these parcels from their proposed December sale. Join us in pushing them to take those appropriate steps. Together, we can ensure the next generation inherits the wildlife, clean water, wild country and freedom to experience this place as we do today.