Part 2 of the Chaffee County Geothermal Investigation
High Country Advocate Staff Report
The pattern: Nicole Rosmarino spent 15 years acquiring 60,000 acres to end ranching in southeastern Colorado. Now, as Colorado State Land Board Director, she blocked a geothermal developer in Chaffee County from a site Colorado’s own geologists never identified as viable—then seeking bigger companies willing to pay more for the same questionable location. Same official, same methods, different mechanism. Rural communities lose either way.
When Save Our Arkansas Valley gathered 1,300 petition signatures in 2023, community members believed their voices mattered. When more than 300 residents and ranchers with private wells within two miles raised safety concerns about earthquakes and groundwater contamination, they assumed state officials would listen. When Chaffee County Commissioner Keith Baker endorsed a $500,000 state grant for the project despite this opposition, they started asking harder questions.
By August 2025, those questions had answers—but not the ones the community wanted.
The Official Colorado Didn’t Elect
Nicole Rosmarino’s appointment as State Land Board Director in June 2025 raised immediate concerns among rural legislators. Seventeen bipartisan members of Colorado’s Rural Caucus sent a letter warning that her background threatened working lands. The Colorado Cattlemen’s Association called her views “radical, anti-ranching beliefs.”
Their concern was well-founded. Rosmarino co-founded Southern Plains Land Trust in 1998, eventually acquiring 60,000 acres in Bent and Prowers counties with $3.1 million in state lottery funds. The organization’s stated mission: restore shortgrass prairie by removing “human-made structures” like cattle corrals and ending livestock grazing. A 2024 SPLT Instagram post declared: “Cows be gone! We only allow native grazers.”
Before founding SPLT, Rosmarino served as Wildlife Program Director for WildEarth Guardians, a group focused on “rewilding” western lands. She also sits on The Rewilding Institute’s Leadership Council. In a 1999 Mother Jones interview, she called the Earth Liberation Front’s $12 million arson at Vail Resort “one of the most beautiful acts of economic sabotage ever in this state” and said she was “jumping up and down with delight” when she heard about the attack.
Most recently, she served as Governor Polis’ Senior Policy Advisor for Wildlife, Agriculture, and Rural Economic Development—a position that prepared her to run the State Land Board, which controls 2.8 million surface acres and 4 million mineral acres generating revenue for Colorado schools.
The State Land Board wasn’t designed for ideological land management. It exists to maximize returns for educational trust beneficiaries. But Rosmarino now controls leasing decisions for agriculture, energy development, and mineral extraction across millions of acres—decisions that directly affect the rural communities she’s spent her career working to transform.
The Location Problem Colorado Won’t Address
The July 2024 Energy and Carbon Management Commission report “Geothermal in Colorado: Resources, Use Strategies, and Impact Considerations” identifies three priority locations for geothermal development: the Piceance Basin in northwestern Colorado, the Raton Basin along the New Mexico border, and the Colorado-Kansas border region.
Maxwell Park in Chaffee County isn’t on the list.
Colorado’s own geologists analyzed the state’s geothermal potential and determined where resources actually exist. Chaffee County didn’t make the cut. Yet Mt. Princeton Geothermal LLC has spent 12 years pursuing development there, and the State Land Board is now seeking bigger investors for the same location.
This isn’t about opposing renewable energy. It’s about questioning why state officials are pushing industrial development in locations their own technical experts never identified as viable.
The August Decision and September Shell Game
Mt. Princeton Geothermal first leased 3,692 acres of Maxwell Park state land in 2013. Founders Hank Held and Fred Henderson claimed they spent $2 million exploring the site—though they never provided receipts for these expenditures. They secured partnerships with Icelandic geothermal companies and obtained a $500,000 Colorado Energy Office grant in May 2024.
Then in August 2025, Rosmarino’s State Land Board voted to deny the lease renewal. The stated reason: competing bidders were willing to pay significantly more. Board staff noted that “recent geothermal auctions are seeing bids ten times higher than five years ago.”
One month later, the Board issued a statewide Request for Information seeking geothermal developers for hundreds of state trust land parcels across Colorado. The RFI—administered by third-party firm Efficient Markets—explicitly targets larger companies with deeper financial capacity. Responses are due December 11, 2025.
“This RFI is about fairness, transparency, and casting the net as wide as possible,” Rosmarino said in the official announcement. But the real question remains: if Maxwell Park isn’t on Colorado’s list of viable geothermal sites, why is the State Land Board seeking any developers for it?
Mt. Princeton Geothermal has filed suit in Denver District Court against the State Land Board, Western Geothermal, and Reykjavik Geothermal, alleging the Icelandic partners pulled out in a “power play” to take over the project.
The Conflicts of Interest Nobody Stopped
While Hank Held pursued his geothermal venture on state land, he simultaneously served on Chaffee County’s Planning & Zoning Commission—the body that would review permits for his own company’s development.
When community members raised concerns about this obvious conflict, Commissioner Keith Baker defended the arrangement. “He’s been a full member of the planning commission for quite some time, and he’s only one member,” Baker told the Ark Valley Voice in December 2023.
Baker’s support for the project went deeper. In January 2023, he organized a meeting at the Ritter Center where Mt. Princeton Geothermal presented their plans to county officials and residents. When the Colorado Energy Office opened grant applications in 2024, Baker joined Buena Vista Mayor Duff Fay and Sangre de Cristo Electric Association in writing endorsement letters for MPG’s successful $500,000 application.
“It’s like a chessboard,” Baker said in the December 2023 interview. “How you move and approach and where you put those priorities.”
This wasn’t an isolated lapse in judgment. Chaffee County has a pattern of allowing officials to hold positions that create conflicts of interest. Marjo Curgus currently directs the Chaffee Housing Authority at $110,000 annually while chairing the Planning and Zoning Commission—the same commission that reviews housing developments.
The message to developers is clear: get yourself appointed to the planning board, and you can smooth your own path to approval.
Why Every Mountain County Should Pay Attention
The September 2025 statewide RFI isn’t limited to Maxwell Park or Chaffee County. The State Land Board made hundreds of parcels across Colorado’s mountains available for geothermal development—all state trust lands are now potentially open for industrial energy projects decided in Denver.
Mountain county commissioners can object, but they can’t stop State Land Board leasing decisions. Property owners near state land can raise safety concerns, but the Board prioritizes revenue generation over local input. Community opposition—even 1,300 petition signatures—carries no weight in Rosmarino’s leasing calculations.
This represents a fundamental shift in how state trust lands are managed. For generations, the State Land Board balanced revenue generation with local partnerships and community considerations. Under Rosmarino’s direction, the calculus has changed. The Board now seeks the highest bidder regardless of community fit, geological suitability, or local opposition.
The Pattern from Plains to Mountains
The mechanism differs, but the method remains identical to what we documented in the Buffalo Commons investigation.
On the eastern plains, Rosmarino founded an organization that acquired 60,000 acres using state funds to end ranching and create prairie dog habitat. Rural communities opposed the transformation. Their opposition was irrelevant. State funding and bureaucratic processes enabled landscape-scale change without local consent.
In Chaffee County, Rosmarino now directs an agency that’s pushing geothermal development on a site Colorado’s own geologists never identified as viable. The community gathered 1,300 petition signatures in opposition. Their opposition was irrelevant. State authority and leasing processes enable industrial development without local consent.
Different mechanisms—conservation acquisition versus energy leasing. Identical results—rural communities losing control over their own futures to appointed officials implementing ideological agendas through bureaucratic power.
The question isn’t whether geothermal energy has merit as a renewable resource. The question is whether appointed officials with documented anti-agriculture backgrounds and rewilding ideologies should control millions of acres of state trust lands affecting rural communities that never voted for them or their vision—especially when they’re pushing development in locations their own technical experts never recommended.
The State Land Board’s December 11 RFI deadline approaches. Whatever responses arrive will determine which mountain counties face industrial geothermal development next—decided in Denver, administered by appointed officials, imposed on rural communities whether they want it or not.
Part 2 of the Chaffee County Geothermal Investigation
Next: What the December 11 RFI deadline means for mountain counties, and what communities can do before decisions are made in Denver.
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