The U.S. Bureau of Land Management auctioned off 55,000 acres on the plateau north of Interstate 70 near Rifle for $114 million. The state and federal governments will split the payoff about equally. About $57 million eventually will find its way to the Colorado treasury - or about 6 percent of the $1 billion windfall predicted by the industry group Americans for American Energy.
"Today is a sad day for Colorado," said Gov. Bill Ritter. "It's a missed opportunity - one we will never get back, one that falls squarely on the shoulders of the Bush administration."
State lawmakers have earmarked the money for college construction and Western Slope communities. Once the wells start producing, the state can expect additional money from royalty payments.
Ritter's administration asked the Roan to be leased in phases over a few decades, rather than leasing the whole thing at once and forcing companies to wait years before they can drill and generate revenues.
On Thursday, two auctioneers took just an hour to complete a sale that's been fought over for a decade.
It was a victory for gas companies, who have pushed for leasing since 1997, when Congress told the BLM to auction off the mineral rights. And it was a defeat for environmentalists, hunters and prominent Colorado Democrats like Ritter, the Salazar brothers in Congress and Senate candidate Mark Udall.
Jon Bargas, spokesman for the Independent Petroleum Association of Mountain States, said official protests filed against the auction drove down the price.
"There were 16,000 protests, and I think a lot of companies are hesitant to step into that minefield," Bargas said.
Meg Collins with the Colorado Oil and Gas Association was blunter, blaming Democrats and environmentalists for casting a "dark cloud of uncertainty" over the Roan through protests and a lawsuit.
The Colorado Department of Natural Resources filed one of those protests. Its director, Harris Sherman, sat in the audience at Thursday's auction at a west Denver hotel. He shook his head as the initial bids came in at just hundreds of dollars per acre and left the sale after half and hour. The lowest bid came in at $68 an acre.
The highest-dollar parcels went last, with one 2,140-acre patch setting the day's high price of $11,800 an acre.
Still, that was less than half of the state record bid of $26,000 an acre, set last November.
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BLM spokesman Steven Hall said the Ritter plan would have made it difficult to manage the land and would have brought in more roads, power lines and pipelines than under the BLM's scheme. The plan calls for extraordinary measures to protect the environment, he said.
Hall said BLM officials were pleased with the sale, and initial estimates are that it set a state record. The previous state record lease sale brought in $11 million, he said.
But environmentalists mourned Thursday's sale.
"I think the sale is the ultimate symbol of the heavy hand of the Bush administration and the industry subverting the will of tens of thousands of Coloradans who wanted to see the top of the Roan protected for recreational and scenic values," said T.J. Brown with the Colorado Environmental Coalition.
Udall and the Salazars tried unsuccessfully to get Congress to block Thursday's auction.
"The Bush administration has basically told the Western Slope to sit down and shut up," Udall said in a news release.
The Roan cliffs are visible north of Interstate 70 around the towns of Rifle and Parachute. Hunting and fishing guides say the area is a critical wildlife habitat.
By most estimates, it is the richest unleased area of natural gas left in Colorado. The BLM estimates about 8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas can be recovered under its leasing plan over 20 years. The United States uses about 22 trillion cubic feet of gas a year.
BLM workers will take a few weeks to a few months to resolve the protests, Hall said.
Environmentalists also have a lawsuit pending against the BLM.
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