ARGYLE — Town leaders have added their voices to the chorus of opponents fighting a company’s plan to build a commercial disposal well for oil and gas production waste in a rural neighborhood near Argyle.

The Argyle Town Council unanimously approved a resolution Tuesday protesting Bosque Disposal Systems’ request for a state permit to operate the disposal well on a 7-acre property near the corner of Frenchtown and Jeter roads southeast of Argyle. The well would handle up to 1 million gallons of wastewater daily from oil and gas production sites, according to an application pending before the Texas Railroad Commission.

The liquid byproduct of oil and gas drilling is mostly salt water, or brine, but can also contain toxic metals and radioactive substances, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

The Bosque application is on hold because the company failed to meet the state’s notice requirements, commission spokeswoman Ramona Nye said Wednesday. Once the application is fixed, the commission will set the case for a hearing, she said.

Clane Lacrosse, president of the Glen Rose-based company, did not return messages seeking comment.

The Argyle resolution encourages the Railroad Commission to “thoroughly investigate” the application, noting that water wells that serve more than 11,000 people are nearby. Argyle leaders said they have no legal authority to stop the disposal well, which would be built outside town limits.

The proposed disposal well, along with a separate plan to build multiple gas compressors on the same site, will be the focus of an open house and town hall meeting tonight in Lantana. Officials from several state agencies are expected to attend to explain the state’s permitting process, said Denton County Commissioner Andy Eads, who organized the meeting with state Rep. Tan Parker. Officials with Bosque and Tulsa, Okla.-based Williams Production Co., the company behind the compressor station proposal, have agreed to attend and answer questions, Eads said.

“We want it to be a very informative, educational setting,” he said.

Williams Production owns the Argyle-area site and plans to build four natural gas compressors there, company spokesman Kelly Swan said last week. The compressor and disposal well projects could work in tandem but aren’t dependent on each other’s development, he said.

The compressors, fed by a network of pipelines, would serve about 20 gas wells the company is drilling or plans to drill in the Argyle area, Swan has said.

Some of those gas wells are on a nearly 20-acre property south of FM407 owned by Argyle council member Wayne Holt. The site is part of a 309-acre pooled unit that includes land owned by Argyle Mayor Greg Landrum, the Argyle school district and dozens of other landowners, according to state records. Argyle council member Bonny Haynes also has a mineral lease with Williams Production, but it wasn’t immediately clear whether it was related to the same pooled unit.

The council voted 2-0 in July to approve a specific-use permit allowing gas drilling at the site. Landrum and Haynes abstained from the vote and filed records disclosing their conflict of interest. Holt and council member Joey Hasty were absent, according to minutes of the July 28 meeting.

In an interview Tuesday, Holt acknowledged that the proposed disposal well and compressors could serve the gas wells being drilled on his property, along with 16 other wells off Harpole Road and “probably more.”

Compressor stations are used to maintain pressure in natural gas pipelines as the gas is transported to market.

Holt abruptly cut off the interview when asked why no compressors were planned for his property.

“I have no further comments, so if you’re trying to trap me, you’re not going to trap me,” he said.

Argyle’s development code forbids disposal wells inside town limits, but compressor stations are allowed with a specific-use permit, said Richard Luedke, the town’s development services coordinator.

Residents react

Area residents urged the council to back their fight against the disposal well during a meeting Jan. 12, soon after the plans were made public. In response, the council drafted the resolution approved Tuesday.

Council members said there was little more they could do.

The town’s subdivision rules apply in the extraterritorial jurisdiction, where the disposal well is proposed, but not zoning laws, Luedke said in an interview.

“Any areas that are not within the corporate limits of a town or city are vulnerable to any type of land and development uses,” he said.

Kelly Gant, who recently moved into a home near the proposed site, said she worries about how compressor emissions would affect her two children who suffer from asthma. Mark Lamont, another area resident, asked for a full study on the health and environmental effects of disposal wells.

Jennifer Cole, who lives near Argyle, urged town leaders to consider how gas drilling in town was affecting land outside its borders.

“As my husband states, many people want the dog but not the fleas — meaning they want the royalties from their leases but they want to push the toxic byproducts, storage tanks, pipelines and noisy compressors on someone else,” Cole said during the meeting. “This is simply not an acceptable solution.”

Cole called for a moratorium on gas drilling operations in Argyle until town leaders are “up to speed on all the issues.”

She also questioned how council members could represent the public on future drilling cases when three of them have leases with Williams.

“We need representation from unbiased parties, and by taking money from these leases you are now in a position that you must recuse yourself from some of the most important decisions that will shape our town for years to come,” she said.

Council members defended their knowledge of the industry and said they were doing all they could to protect the public. Haynes said the mineral leases shouldn’t be an issue.

“It doesn’t matter that we have leases,” she said. “Everybody in this town has a lease right now, just about.”

Landrum said he saw no legal justification for a gas drilling moratorium and dismissed the dogs-and-fleas comment as an “oddball analogy.”

“We are permitting people to drill [gas] wells in a system and in a state that allows the drilling of those wells,” he said in an interview. “There are many things that happen after the well gets drilled that are not controlled by us and are not done within our city limits.”

Landrum said he would continue to abstain from votes related to Holt’s property. But Landrum said the law would allow him to participate in more-general votes involving Williams, because his income from the company isn’t expected to be significant.

LOWELL BROWN can be reached at 940-566-6882. His e-mail address is lmbrown@dentonrc.com .

IF YOU GO

What: Public meeting on natural gas activities in the Argyle-Bartonville area

When: Open house, 6 to 7 p.m.; town hall meeting, 7 to 8:30 p.m. today

Where: Tom Harpool Middle School, 9601 Stacee Lane, Lantana (corner of Stacee Lane and Hickory Hill Road)

Why: The meeting is being held to discuss plans for natural gas compressors and a commercial disposal well on a 7-acre property near Argyle.

Contact: For more information on the meeting, call state Rep. Tan Parker at 972-724-8477 or Denton County Commissioner Andy Eads at 940-349-2801.