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Here, amid dozens of organic farms, orchards and ranches, the federal government is opening up thousands of acres of public land for oil and gas drilling, part of its largest energy lease sale in Colorado since Mr. Obama took office.

In all, leases for 114,932 acres of federal land across Colorado are being auctioned off next month — a tiny piece of what Mr. Obama lauded during last year's campaign as a historic effort to increase domestic natural-gas production. Those holes have to be drilled somewhere, and the move to lease public lands in this valley has stirred a fierce debate, one that has aligned Republican residents more closely to the government's plans than Democrats.

Coloradans in solidly red cities west of here are the ones who have written letters to the government supporting the lease sale, saying it will bring jobs and tax revenues. In Paonia, where political lines are more evenly split, residents have come out overwhelmingly against the idea of drilling, saying it threatens a new economy rooted in tourism, wineries and organic peaches.

"It's just this land-grab, rape-and-pillage mentality," said Landon Deane, who has 80 cows on a ranch near several federal parcels being put up for lease.

Because of the quirks of mineral ownership in the West, which can divide ownership of land and the minerals under it, one parcel up for bid sits directly below Ms. Deane's fields, where she has recently been thinking of sowing hops for organic beer.

"All it takes is one spill," she said, "and we're toast."

Paonia takes its environmental debates seriously — so much so that in 2003, someone upset over insecticide spraying set off a bomb in the headquarters of the town's Mosquito Control District (no one was hurt).

For years, activists in town raged against the century-old coal mines about 10 miles up the road, before eventually reaching a détente with the industry, which provides hundreds of jobs in the valley. Paonia is also home to an award-winning community radio station and The High Country News, a nonprofit newspaper that covers land and environmental issues across the West.

Last week, the forces of government and upset residents collided like two weather fronts in a packed, stifling town meeting.

Officials from the Bureau of Land Management explained the situation: under 90-year-old laws, companies and people can nominate public lands for drilling, and the government is obliged to auction them off after months of review and public comment. The officials explained that they had removed some of the most sensitive and contentious pieces of land from consideration, but said the auction was happening.

About 200 residents sat on the floor, lined the walls and spilled into the hallway, jeering and hooting as officials insisted — sometimes patiently, sometimes brusquely — that the drilling method known as hydraulic fracturing was safe and that there would be little environmental impact on the valley. They applauded as Town Council members pressed federal officials on the drilling's potential effects on the town's air, water and economy — eliciting responses that were as unsatisfactory to the crowd as a bushel of mealy peaches.

"I can't guarantee you there won't be a spill," Lonny Bagley, the land management agency's deputy state director for energy and minerals, told the audience. "I can't guarantee there won't be a blowout."

Paonia's mayor, Neal Schwieterman, pressed officials on why they had used a 30-year-old resource plan to evaluate whether drilling would mesh with the valley's lifestyle and growing tourism economy. Why not delay any lease sale, he asked, until the bureau could write a new blueprint for land management in the area?