WALSENBURG — From a small plane circling over secluded grassy meadows and Sangre de Cristo Mountain spires, politicians and conservationists on Friday will see the stakes as the federal government pushes to open 18,000 acres next to some of the nation’s most pristine wilderness and headwaters to fossil fuels development.

But the Trump administration’s proposed sell-off of mineral rights on the eastern slopes of the mountains for possible oil and gas drilling puts locals in a quandary.

On one hand, Huerfano County ranks among the poorest in Colorado after decades of mineral booms and busts. One county commissioner and a state senator said new drilling could bring much-needed bucks. On the other hand, people here rely on the Huerfano River watershed and a natural solitude and beauty that increasingly attracts well-heeled visitors.

Drilling could be done on parcels touching the Sangre de Cristo Wilderness Area, and as close as one mile from the boundary of the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve. Newly acquired Navajo ancestral property lies to the north, and Navajos consider two mountains in the area to be sacred.

“If there’s possible oil and gas, it would be good for the county — as long as they adhere to the standards,” Huerfano County Commission chairman Ray Garcia said. “We won’t be taking a formal position. Whatever happens happens.”

However, fellow Commissioner Gerald Cisneros said he “‘can see both sides of it” and emphasized environmental stewardship.

“Fracking, they pump a lot of stuff into the ground,” Cisneros said. “We have the Cucharas River and the Huerfano River. Those are our only two water sources. For our farming community, people with wells, if the river gets contaminated, then what?”

In 2007, an energy company’s drilling for gas in Huerfano County led to methane contamination of domestic wells and explosions at a home and a well pump house. This has soured some residents on oil and gas development, and many of them now contend industrial truck traffic, drilling rigs and hydraulic fracturing, even under the state’s regulations, would bring more harm than help.

“We have clean air and water,” said longtime resident Margaret Gleisberg, who manages the county mining museum. “Yes, it is a poor county. It always has been. I would like to see economic development, but I don’t want to lose the good things we have.”

Federal Bureau of Land Management officials this summer will make the decision on whether to open this area for development. Under Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, agency officials have been accelerating domestic fossil fuels production using public land, shortening periods for public protest from 30 days to 10.

Most of the land was purchased last year by energy company owners David and Crystal Watts of Texas. And the BLM has received a petition seeking rights to extract public minerals under that land. The agency will not reveal the name of the petitioner, although locals widely assume it to be the Wattses or one of their companies.

David Watts on Thursday said he already owns some mineral rights and any oil and gas development would not harm land.

Asked about his plans for oil and gas development, Watts said in an emailed response, “How could we have plans on (mineral) leases that we don’t even own? We are the surface owners on most of the lands and we do own minerals as well. Our ranch is certainly conservation driven for wildlife, landscape, community and family.

“Any oil and gas activity or any activity … would have to be met with surface use agreements and other agreements that would be clearly spelled out to protect our ranch as well as the industry and community. The rights of private land owners and private minerals owners should always be considered by those who throw the first rock.”

Denver-based Environmental Protection Agency officials have suggested that the BLM consider a delay until the agency revises an outdated plan for eastern Colorado. State officials have supported this. Navajo Nation President Russell Begaye said, “This land is sacred and the Navajo Nation will always protect the beauty and sacredness of the land.”

No dates have been set for completing an update of the BLM plan, agency spokesman Steven Hall said. The agency will issue a notice July 20, Hall said. “The parcels may or may not be included in that lease sale notice.” Then, he said, “the public will have the opportunity to protest the sale parcels at that time, with a deadline of July 30.”

On Friday, Sierra Club members and others plan to visit the area, north of 14,344-foot Blanca Peak — also known as White Shell Mountain, or Tsisnaasjini — at the southern edge of the Wet Mountain Valley. Aspen-based Eco-Flight will provide aerial access, with staffers for U.S. Sens. Michael Bennet and Cory Gardner scheduled to take a close look. Eco-Flight pilot Bruce Gordon said during a flight Wednesday that he’s concerned “things are getting rushed through” with less time for people to learn what is happening — making for “a one-sided deal without looking at science.”

BLM officials last year conducted an initial review and moved toward opening the area. At the eastern edge of the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve, National Park Service and U.S. Forest Service researchers for nearly a decade have been working on a project to save bristlecone pine trees, now widely imperiled by a blister rust fungus.

Great Sand Dunes natural resources chief Fred Bunch said drilling, if it happens, wouldn’t be visible behind mountains to a growing international flow of visitors. Leasing public land for development “is what the BLM does,” said Bunch, who has been measuring light levels in the park in support of an application for international “dark skies” certification.

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper has said he takes seriously the concerns about the potential development, which have been raised by the EPA, Navajos and thousands of state residents who signed petitions.

For years, Huerfano County has struggled economically. A private prison recently closed. Energy development began more than a century ago with coal mining, which claimed hundreds of lives from explosions, and continues with extraction of underground carbon dioxide, which moves by a pipeline to Texas for use stimulating older oil and gas wells as companies maximize production.

The prospect of new jobs and tax revenue appeals. However, Cisneros said energy companies typically “bring all their crew from other places. Very seldom do they hire from the community.”

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Letters: What is Neville thinking? (8/29/20) State Sen. Larry Crowder, who represents 16 counties in southern Colorado, said a majority of residents in 15, including Huerfano, live in poverty. “Any economic development I can bring into that Huerfano County, I will do it,” Crowder said.

Yet county administrator John Galusha said the economy already may be improving. “We’re not hard up for economic activity. We’ve got quite a lot of tourism going on, and also other activities,” Galusha said, citing a 30 percent increase since last year in house-building.

Opposition groups are ramping up their campaign, teaming with the Sierra Club, Conservation Colorado and others to raise concerns about wildlife habitat, migration routes, public access to land, and noise and light that could hurt current efforts to preserve starry skies.

“We’re appalled by the prospect of oil and gas exploration from the proposed BLM leases through the entirety of the upper Huerfano River watershed,” Citizens for Huerfano County president Jeff Briggs said. “We’re appalled by the possible impact, especially given the proximity to the Great Sand Dunes National Park and the Sangre de Cristo Wilderness Area. And we object to being sidelined by diminished public comment periods, expedited paper trails and tepid BLM environmental assessments that find ‘no significant impact.’ “