Campaign funds: Fracking opponents drill deep.

Pro-ban groups keep a close eye on the hundreds of thousands of dollars the industry is using to fight moratoriums on ballots in four cities.

Groups opposing four anti-fracking measures have campaign contributions of $606,205 — 99.7 percent of which came from the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, reports filed Tuesday show.

The sum is nearly 40 times more than the $15,725.36 raised by groups attempting to limit drilling in Fort Collins, Boulder, Lafayette and Broomfield.

“It obviously puts us at a disadvantage,” said Nate Troup, vice president of antifracking group Our Broomfield, which has raised $4,952.55.“We’re operating on a shoestring budget, running to Costco to buy postage as cheap as possible to send out our mailings.”

Like other small organizations across the Front Range, Our Broomfield was founded to ban hydraulic fracturing for oil and gas for five years.

Most of the money that flowed to pro-industry groups has been spent with iKue Strategies, a Denver firm coordinating advertising and outreach. Former Republican state Rep. B.J. Nikkel is the firm’s adviser on the campaign.

She said the COGA-funded groups are defending people’s mineral rights and economic interests in the oil and gas industry.

“I would love to see us beat every one of these ballot initiates because they’re bad for the cities,” Nikkel said.

The industry group poured $256,134 into Fort Collins Alliance for Reliable Energy. Former Fort Collins Mayor Ray Martinez’s consulting firm kicked in another $100. Boulder Citizens for Rational Energy Decisions received $110,277, and Lafayette Campaign for Energy Choice got $66,974. Both groups received $100 from political consultant Sean Walsh’s firm. In Broomfield, COGA funded two groups, spending $156,238 with Broomfield Balanced Energy Coalition and $15,000 with It’s Our Broomfield Too! Former Democratic state senate candidate Lee Kemp and a Broomfield business each donated $50 to the coalition. Individual donors also gave $1,182 to It’s Our Broomfield Too!

“We’ve seen some of those initial numbers, and we know we’re getting blown away in terms of funding,” Troup said. “That's why we’re reliant on and grateful for every one of our $20 contributions.”

In Boulder, just $3,802 has been reported in support of the anti-fracking measure there. Only $165.67was raised in the last reporting period.

A proposed city charter amendment in Lafayette would permanently prohibit natural gas and oil extraction in city limits, except through currently active wells.

Question 300 in Broomfield, Issue 2H in Boulder and Issue 2A in Fort Collins would enact five-year moratoriums on fracking within city limits.

“They’re bans really when we’re talking a five-year amount of time,” Nikkel said.

Drilling is relatively rare in the counties where the initiatives are based.

An Oct. 7 report by the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission’s showed that of 51,398 active wells in the state, 321 were in Boulder County, 254 in Larimer County and 97 in Broomfield County.

Still, Nikkel said, the campaign defending hydraulic fracturing is not merely making a statement.

“I don’t know if it’s necessarily rhetorical,” Nikkel said. “There are people with private-property rights at stake in this.”