The High Country News
July 23, 2010, Jennie Lay

For three northwestern Colorado county commissioners, June 29 seemed like just another routine meeting with the feds. The Bureau of Land Management wanted to chat with the Moffat County officials about a management plan revision that has dragged on for nearly a decade. The draft version had proposed oil and gas development throughout the county's high desert landscape, and the commissioners and many locals assumed that the final plan would follow suit, providing Moffat County with a much-needed source of revenue and jobs. But the BLM staffers had shocking news: A big slice of the county's public land would be closed to oil and gas development. The 77,000-acre Vermillion Basin, an expanse of crimson bluffs, fossil beds and spectacular petroglyphs hidden in meandering red-clay canyons, would remain wild and undeveloped. The basin, two hours northwest of Craig, contains stands of piñon and juniper, towering big basin sage and saltbush. ...

http://www.hcn.org/hcn/issues/42.13/vermillion-surprise