All those wonderful wind farms that have been built in West Texas don’t have enough line capacity to carry all the power to the damn Yankees that are assing up my AO, so long story short, they’ve managed to get the PUC to approve a new 345kV transmission line. But then all the hippy dumbasses in Denton managed to get together and pull a NIMBY, and get the approved route to shoot 20 miles north from the Krum switching station, then jog east, then drop another 20 miles south to the Anna switching station, rather than just doing a (relatively) straight shot from Krum to Anna. Absolutely ridiculous and a waste of resources if you ask me, even if I didn’t have property affected. Map & info here:
http://www.oncor.com/electricity/transmission/crez/projects/KrumWest.aspx
http://www.oncor.com/electricity/transmission/docs/Krum_West_-_Anna_-_Approved_Route.pdf
Problem is, this new route goes straight through our property. We’ve already got a Brazos powerline easement going through our place, but it is only a couple of telephone poles with lines; the new line is going to be one of the big metal structures.
Existing ones look like this and are spaced two wide:
They had a public meeting last night to provide more info to affected property owners, and they told us that they will be taking a new 160’ easement, but that they can’t consolidate the existing lines into the new structures. However, we found out that some other property owners along the approved route have already gotten approval to have the lines consolidated through their land, apparently because they did something early on in the process. Not sure what.
Additionally, they are proposing putting the line to the east of the existing Brazos line, which will put it right down the middle of the western half of our land and take out a bunch of 50+ year old pecan trees. Jogging to the west will spare the trees, avoid passing over a stock tank, get it out of the flood plain, and put it on the edge of the property. Looking at the map, the approved route through our place and several others north of us is an absolutely straight shot, but when you look at other sections of the route, it doglegs and jogs all over the place.
So, if any of y’all here are property law/easement specialists I could use the help. First off, what do we have to do to force them to consolidate the lines to minimize impact and use the existing easement, and secondly, if that doesn’t work, how can we force them to not just go straight through a prime area of our property and rather go through an area that would have a much lower impact?
Email is in my profile if you want to take it offline or have any recommendations on someone to talk to. We’re already screwed (from the point of view that it is coming through our place; no way to stop that), but I’d really like to minimize the impact as much as possible.
http://www.oncor.com/electricity/transmission/crez/projects/KrumWest.aspx
http://www.oncor.com/electricity/transmission/docs/Krum_West_-_Anna_-_Approved_Route.pdf
Problem is, this new route goes straight through our property. We’ve already got a Brazos powerline easement going through our place, but it is only a couple of telephone poles with lines; the new line is going to be one of the big metal structures.
Existing ones look like this and are spaced two wide:
They had a public meeting last night to provide more info to affected property owners, and they told us that they will be taking a new 160’ easement, but that they can’t consolidate the existing lines into the new structures. However, we found out that some other property owners along the approved route have already gotten approval to have the lines consolidated through their land, apparently because they did something early on in the process. Not sure what.
Additionally, they are proposing putting the line to the east of the existing Brazos line, which will put it right down the middle of the western half of our land and take out a bunch of 50+ year old pecan trees. Jogging to the west will spare the trees, avoid passing over a stock tank, get it out of the flood plain, and put it on the edge of the property. Looking at the map, the approved route through our place and several others north of us is an absolutely straight shot, but when you look at other sections of the route, it doglegs and jogs all over the place.
So, if any of y’all here are property law/easement specialists I could use the help. First off, what do we have to do to force them to consolidate the lines to minimize impact and use the existing easement, and secondly, if that doesn’t work, how can we force them to not just go straight through a prime area of our property and rather go through an area that would have a much lower impact?
Email is in my profile if you want to take it offline or have any recommendations on someone to talk to. We’re already screwed (from the point of view that it is coming through our place; no way to stop that), but I’d really like to minimize the impact as much as possible.