Weld Commissioners approve Chalk Bluffs wind project
September 25, 2026
Rachel Gabel | rgabel@thefencepost.com
The Weld County Board of Commissioners’ meeting on Sept. 23, 2026, was filled with ranch families and others there to speak to the Colorado Chalk Bluffs Wind Energy Facility land use application. Ultimately, the project was approved on a 3-2 vote following 7 hours of public testimony.
The wind and solar project is located near the Chalk Bluffs in northern Weld County on private property. It includes approximately 79 turbines ranging in height from 499 feet to 596 feet located across 16,000 acres and 2,293 acres of solar panels. The projected local long-term earnings are $3.8 million per year. The majority of neighboring landowners sent letters to the commissioners in opposition to the project citing wildlife concerns, view shed destruction, dust, road damage and loss of agricultural land.
Bob Choate, a land use attorney based in Greeley, spoke about the completeness and quality of the application and said when he thinks about Weld County, he thinks about two things: agriculture and energy.
“For the last many decades, the oil and gas industry has dominated the energy industry in Weld County,” Choate said. “That’s changing. Economics change, things happen and that’s fine. But I think of Weld County as sort of the energy breadbasket of Colorado and maybe the whole western United States.”
He said there are people in the room on both sides of the argument for and against the project.
“There are some people in the room you’ll hear from who don’t want this, and there are some people that are participating landowners and they want it,” he said. “This is life-changing, generational changing and we talk about the farms and the ranches and how it is harder and harder to make it work. And what happens? Your kids grow up and they move away and they can’t make it in the industry and so they don’t continue generational farming.”
He said supplemental income has historically come from the oil and gas industry, but this renewable project will allow participating landowners’ children to continue ranching. The project applicants said 100% of neighbors were contacted, and some were offered payments for the effects.
DIFFICULT CASE
The neighbors opposing the project addressed the commissioners and many voiced concerns about the anticipated traffic and road damage in addition to the existing oil and gas traffic.
Commissioner Jason Maxey said this land use case was the most difficult he’s seen during his time on the board. Maxey said grid resiliency is a concern, and this project does help ease that problem.
“Electrons are not blue or red, and they aren’t even green,” he said, quoting a speaker at a conference he attended. “And so whenever I hear renewable energy for projects like this, quite frankly, there is no renewable energy. This is just all forms of energy, they’re not partisan. It doesn’t matter if we’re red or blue, it’s just energy.”
Maxey also pointed out that the end users are not yet determined, but the energy produced will be used locally as well as out of state. He criticized the energy density of the project, which spans thousands of acres.
“I believe our state has failed us when it comes to energy production and the rules that surround existing and new development,” Maxey said. “We have unnecessary and overly burdensome government regulation that has hindered our ability to produce energy efficiently, plentifully, and cost effectively and that’s frustrating to me.”
He said an oil and gas site was denied at a State Energy and Carbon Management Commission hearing within this project area boundary three years ago due primarily to wildlife concerns. He said preserving lifestyle is important and he recognizes how difficult agriculture is and that economic challenges are eased by energy leases.
He said he does look at this type of development as preserving agriculture, in part, because it can be removed after the 30-year life of the project and the land can be returned to ranching. He said housing developments, for example, will exist longer than 30 years and that land will not be returned to production.
ELECTRICITY USE
Commissioner Kevin Ross said there was concern about where the electricity would be used and that it wouldn’t be used locally.
“I look at electricity no differently than I look at any of our other commodities we (produce) in Weld County that being oil and gas, steel and agricultural products whether that’s grain, cattle, and things of that nature,” he said. “We don’t just consume them in Weld County, we share them with the world and electricity, just like oil and gas, is going to go everywhere.”
Commissioner Perry Buck said she found herself in a full circle moment from when she was attending a commission meeting, hoping for the denial of an industrial center near her property. She said at the time, she was told if she wanted that land for her personal open space and view shed, she should have purchased it.
“I missed the elk and the pheasants next door and I missed what I thought of as my view,” she said. “But it wasn’t on my land.”
She said her own family has utilized mineral extraction and pipeline easements as part of the way to keep their farming operations in the family for three generations and said she supports the private property right to allow the same rights for the families asking for the ability to develop energy on their property.
