Reality is catching up with the “ban fracking” and “keep it in the ground” groups behind Proposition 112.

It started early last week, when the famously progressive New York Times applied some scrutiny to Prop 112. The Times correctly labeled 112 as an “anti-fracking” measure and an “extreme” one at that. But more importantly, the Times story gave working families in the energy sector a chance to defend their jobs and reputations from the fiercely negative and personal attacks of the Prop 112 campaign.

As a Times reporter later explained on Twitter: “[G]ood blue collar jobs are very hard to come by in this country right now” and the oil and gas sector “is one of the few industries that allows [blue-collar workers] access to the American dream.” The same reporter also noted that Gov. John Hickenlooper and other Democrats worry about the “economic fallout” from Prop 112 and say “there is no science to show that the proposed rule protects health any more than the current one does.”

Then, CBS Denver conducted a detailed and extensively sourced “reality check” on Prop 112, which would ban oil and gas drilling within 2,500 feet – roughly half a mile – of millions of structures and geographical features found all across Colorado. It didn’t go well for Food & Water Watch and 350.org, Prop 112’s national sponsors, who have been trying for years to ban oil and gas development in Colorado without being straightforward or honest with voters about their intentions.

“Make no mistake, this is an effective ban and it would take an enormous financial toll on the state, while – based on research from the state health department – doing little to nothing to improve our health and safety,” the fact-check concluded. State health experts have studied the Prop 112 campaign’s claims and found they are “hypothetical not scientific” and “compiled by groups with an anti-fracking bias” from outside our state, the fact-check also noted.

While all this was going on, the conservative editorial page of the Colorado Springs Gazette revealed 350.org founder Bill McKibben – who says he wants to “kill” the oil and gas sector and “drive a stake through the heart” of the industry – has been touring our state, the latest in a series of East Coast “ban fracking” activists brought to Colorado by the Prop 112 campaign. And Roger Pielke Jr., a professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado, pulled no punches in his assessment: “[Prop 112] is a ban on oil and gas extraction.”

The events of the past week have been a long time coming, based on the conversations I’ve had with people across the state while working to defeat Prop 112.

Krystal Awang, for example, is a member of Pipefitters Local 208 – a trade union that vocally supports Polis for governor. In her mid-20s, Awang lives in Westminster and is finishing a five-year apprenticeship that will open the doors to a career in the energy sector and other industries supported by oil and gas production in Colorado.

That is, unless Prop 112 passes, she told me in an interview.

Before her current job, Awang worked as a waitress. “I now have a steady paycheck and health insurance,” she said. “So if I need to go to the doctor, I can go to the doctor and I’m covered. I’m not just living on tips and hopefully making enough each day. I’m able to live on my own and take care of myself.

“If I wasn’t part of this trade, I would be working two jobs, living with my parents and I wouldn’t have anything that I have now. It has given me a way to provide for myself, instead of asking my parents to keep providing for me, which so many young people have to nowadays.”

“If Proposition 112 passes, there’ll be a lot less work to go around and I don’t know what happens to my career. It’s going to affect a lot of union members and other workers out there,” she said. Indeed, an economic study on the impacts of Proposition 112 shows almost 150,000 workers will lose their jobs if the ballot measure passes, with more than three-quarters of the lost jobs in industries outside of oil and gas.

Gary Arnold, business manager for Pipefitters Local 208, told me he’s frustrated that the groups behind Prop 112 refuse to accept the findings of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources about the impact of the ballot measure. Those findings show a drilling ban covering 85 percent of state and private land, the result of millions of overlapping 450-acre setback areas created by the fine print of Prop 112.

“Anybody who looks at the facts can clearly see how these setbacks overlap, putting 85 percent of the available space off limits,” Arnold told me. “You’re not pushing the drilling back 2,500 feet. You are pushing it back many, many miles until it’s just not feasible.”

“With Proposition 112, you are talking about eliminating an entire industry. Why would we just get rid of all those jobs? You can’t just leave working people out in the cold.”

It’s not just rank-and-file energy workers refuting the claims of the Prop 112 campaign, either. Public safety professionals in Weld County, where 90 percent of the state’s oil production and a third of natural gas production takes place, are pushing back too.

“The long term affects this proposition would have on fire districts, school districts, and local economies would be devastating,” the Windsor Severance Firefighters Union said in a statement last week. “While we support regulations that keep our community safe, this proposition places unreasonable restrictions on an industry that is vital to our state.”

Like state health regulators, public safety officials reject the claims of the Prop 112 campaign.

“Proposition 112 supporters are claiming to speak for firefighters and other first responders when arguing for a half-mile drilling setback,” said Evans Fire Protection District Board President Mary Achziger, a former 911 dispatcher and volunteer firefighter. “To the best of my knowledge, they have never approached our fire protection district for input or advice.”

Based on her experience in public safety, “it is highly misleading to suggest a half-mile evacuation is a mandatory or routine response to incidents involving oil and gas production sites,” Achziger said. Not only that, the ballot measure applies the same half-mile setback to so-called vulnerable areas “where people do not live, not just occupied structures,” she said. “This makes me seriously doubt that public safety is the real motivation behind Proposition 112.”

When I spoke with Mark Lawley, the former chief of the Mountain View Fire Protection District, he was similarly perplexed by the claims of the Prop 112 campaign.

“I spent 37 years as a first responder providing protection to citizens in the most productive oil fields in Weld County,” Lawley said. “In the course of my career, I don’t recall ever evacuating anyone half a mile as a result of a fire or spill related to [oil and gas] exploration and production.”

The same goes for “ruptured residential gas lines” belonging to utility companies, “which are located much closer to houses than oil and gas wells,” Lawley said. He also pointed out that throughout his career, his colleagues “worked and trained with the oil and gas industry on a regular basis to ensure swift mitigation of an incident if one occurred.”

As a reporter-turned-advocate, I can tell you that misinformation travels much faster than the facts at the beginning of any debate. But over time, in ways big and small, the people who really know their stuff start to speak up and correct the record. Sooner or later, the facts make up for lost time – and the facts prevail.