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Officials from a Salt Lake City-based energy company hope to have 4,000 wells drilled in a 150,000-acre region along the Colorado-Wyoming border during the next 30 years.

Vincent Rigatti, a general manager for Questar Market Resources, said Wednesday that about 60 percent of the drilling activity in the Hiawatha region would take place in Wyoming, and the rest would be in northwest Moffat County.

The Bureau of Land Management handles about 90 percent of the land Questar hopes to develop, Rigatti said.

Rigatti has been meeting with local officials in recent weeks to explain the company's plans for the Hiawatha region.

BLM could give the company the go-ahead to drill in early 2008 and issue a final Environmental Impact Statement in June 2007, according to Questar.

The company will host public meetings about their plans in July or August of this year, Rigatti said.

"There are still a lot of things we have to address," he said.

Most of the work force that would drill in Hiawatha probably would be based in Rock Springs, Wyo., Rigatti said.

Rock Springs is closer to the fields and is at the center of the region's oil-and-gas development, Rigatti said.

Although Rock Springs would host the work force for drilling in Hiawatha, Moffat County would receive substantial tax revenue, he said.

The majority of the wells would pump natural gas, Rigatti said, but there is some oil potential in the region.

Questar officials would like to see year-round drilling in the area, in part because they want a stable work force, Rigatti said.

"We do feel that winter drilling and completion is crucial," he said.

Because the Hiawatha region has seen oil-and-gas activity since the 1920s, Rigatti said he doesn't expect too much resistance to drilling there.

"This is an area that has seen a lot of activity," Rigatti said.

Erik Molvar, a wildlife biologist with the Biodiversity Conservation Alliance in Lar--amie, Wyo., said that whether conservationists will object to Hiawatha drilling would depend on where the drilling is.

"If the wells are placed in areas that are already currently drilled, that would make this a much less controversial project," Molvar said.

But if Questar or another company plans to drill near the two citizen-proposed wilderness areas in the Hiawatha region, the companies would meet resistance, Molvar said.

In general, Molvar said the extent to which Questar hopes to drill is surprising, given the drilling that already has happened in Hiawatha.

"It just seems like a huge increase to ask for," Molvar said. "It's very strange."

Rigatti said Questar plans to drill for gas much deeper than what is commonly done in Hiawatha.

About 95 percent of the wells that already have been drilled in Hiawatha were shallow wells, Rigatti said. The wells Questar plans to build would be deep, he said.

Marianna Raftopoulos, a spokeswoman for energy companies operating in Northwest Colorado, said that although Questar plans only 1,000 to 1,500 wells in Moffat County, the project still would be significant.

Hiawatha and the northwest corner of the county are hot spots for drilling in Moffat County, Raftopoulos said.

"Hiawatha has certainly been a stronghold for gas production," she said.