Standing in a canyon in hilly terrain, Ken Neubecker was fishing on the Roan Plateau, a high stretch of terrain beloved by hunters, fishermen and hikers for its clear streams, herds of deer and elk, and rugged beauty. 'There just aren't many places like this in the West,' Neubecker said. 'It's a real gem.' Energy companies are looking at the Roan Plateau, too. Vast deposits of natural gas are believed to lie beneath it and the companies want to drill. 'What is really special about the Roan Plateau, these lands in particular, is the incredible energy density beneath it,' said Duane Zavadil, vice president of Bill Barrett Corp., a Denver energy company that holds drilling rights to the Roan. Last-minute leasing by the Bush administration put extensive federal lands in Utah and Colorado into the hands of oil and gas companies, including 36,000 acres of the Roan Plateau. The Obama administration has inherited the touchy question of what to do with those leases. As one of his first decisions, Ken Salazar, the Coloradan who is President Barack Obama's interior secretary, scrapped disputed leases in Utah. Last week, he announced he would seek investigation into other leases that granted favorable terms and low royalty rates for experimental projects to extract oil from shale. But so far, Salazar has decided against canceling leases on the Roan, saying he must uphold buyers' rights. Sporting and environmental groups are suing the government, demanding that the leases be thrown out. A preliminary ruling is expected this fall. This desire to preserve more wild land is running up against a powerful economic incentive to develop new supplies of oil and gas. New production techniques have expanded the country's known reserves of natural gas by 40 percent in the last few years. As it plans to exploit the Roan Plateau, Bill Barrett Corp. is promising sensitivity to the area's wild character. It told investors that if it is allowed to develop the plateau, it may drill as many as 3,200 wells. But Barrett Corp.'s Zavadil said the company would diligently avoid trout streams and minimize other disruptions by using advanced techniques to pack dozens of wells together. The company has also pledged to develop only portions of the plateau at a time, and to put up money to improve wildlife habitats. 'We can have our cake and eat it, too,' Zavadil said. 