Rico town council member Matt Downer remembers his excitement when he saw a map showing that his town might sit on top of some of the state’s hottest geothermal resources.

“This could really be awesome for the town and for the region,” he said, thinking of the potential for taking advantage of that resource in his community southwest of Telluride.

“It looked like just a really fantastic use of a natural resource that’s nonextractive, totally renewable. It just seemed like the direction we should be going in,” Downer said.

He and other town officials envision tapping geothermal energy for everything from electricity generation to heating sidewalks and buildings.

But like so many others looking into geothermal, Rico officials feel as if they’re venturing into uncharted territory dotted with more questions than answers.

“To be honest, we’re still trying to figure out what the rules are,” Downer said.

So is the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, at least in Colorado. For the first time in the state, the BLM was scheduled this month to offer to sell lease rights to develop geothermal energy. However, the agency has decided to postpone the action until its next quarterly oil and gas lease sale in February. BLM spokesman Jim Sample said the agency put off the geothermal sale “to give us time to work on our agreement on how to handle geothermal with the state.”