On August 28, 2026, the Public Utility Commission of Texas approved two of Oncor Electric Delivery Company’s four proposed 765 kV transmission line projects, and selected the exact routes both lines will follow. Together, the two approved lines run 424.2 miles across West and Central Texas.
Oncor is now seeking permanent easements from property owners along both approved routes. Below is what the Commission decided, which counties are affected, and what landowners should know before agreeing to a survey or signing an easement.
Quick Facts: What the PUCT Decision Means for Landowners
What happened: On August 28, 2026, the Public Utility Commission of Texas approved two of Oncor’s proposed 765 kV transmission line projects and selected the final route for each. Route 559 and Route 476 together run 424.2 miles.
Still pending: Oncor’s other two 765 kV projects, Big Hill to Sand Lake and Bell County East to Big Hill, have not yet been approved.
What Oncor needs from landowners: Oncor is not buying your land. What it needs is a permanent easement: the right to build, operate, and maintain the line across a strip of your property indefinitely, while you keep ownership and continue paying taxes on it.
What happens next for landowners:
- A land agent requests permission to survey your property
- An appraiser values the proposed easement
- Oncor makes a written offer for the easement
- If you decline, Oncor has the power of eminent domain and can acquire the easement through condemnation proceedings
What is still negotiable:
- The amount of compensation you receive
- The width, structure placement, access, and restoration terms in the easement document
- Whether damages to the remainder of your property are properly valued
Do not sign a survey agreement or an easement before it has been reviewed.
What the PUCT Approved in August 2026
The Commission approved both applications over objections asking it to hold off.
Dinosaur to Longshore (PUCT Docket No. 59315). The Commission approved Route 559, a 242.6 mile line running from Oncor’s new Dinosaur Switch, located roughly three miles north of Glen Rose in Somervell County, to the existing Longshore Switch about four and a half miles west of Forsan in Howard County. Estimated cost is $2.24 billion. Administrative law judges at the State Office of Administrative Hearings had already recommended Route 559 in a Proposal for Decision issued on July 24, 2026.
Longshore to Drill Hole (PUCT Docket No. 59029). The Commission approved Route 476, a 181.6 mile line running west from that same Longshore Switch in Howard County out to the Drill Hole Switch near the Culberson and Reeves county line. Estimated cost is $1.70 billion.
Both projects are part of the Permian Basin Reliability Plan, the state’s response to rapidly growing electric demand in West Texas. Oncor’s two remaining 765 kV projects, Big Hill to Sand Lake and Bell County East to Big Hill, are still pending before the Commission and have not been approved.
The complete records for both proceedings are public. You can review them on the Commission’s Interchange under Docket No. 59315 and Docket No. 59029.
From a 30-County Study Area to a Route Across Your Land
Until late August, these two proceedings covered study areas that together spanned 30 Texas counties. The Dinosaur to Longshore application area included Borden, Bosque, Brown, Callahan, Coke, Coleman, Comanche, Eastland, Erath, Glasscock, Hamilton, Hood, Howard, Jones, Mitchell, Nolan, Runnels, Shackelford, Somervell, Stephens, Sterling, and Taylor counties. The Longshore to Drill Hole application area included Andrews, Culberson, Ector, Glasscock, Howard, Loving, Martin, Midland, Reeves, and Winkler counties.
A study area is not a route. It is the broad region Oncor examined while working out where a line could go, and most property inside it was never going to be crossed. Until the Commission selected the routes, landowners across these 30 counties had no reliable way to know whether their land was affected. That is no longer true. Both approved transmission lines now have a fixed centerline, and Oncor knows precisely which tracts it needs easements across.
It is also the point at which your property can finally be appraised. A 765 kV single-circuit transmission line is a very different thing from the distribution lines most people picture along a county road. These lines are carried on large steel lattice towers, and the permanent easements they require are correspondingly wide. What that easement does to the use and market value of everything around it is usually where the real money in these cases sits, and it is also the part that initial offers most consistently understate.
Oncor publishes an interactive route map for the Dinosaur to Longshore project where landowners can locate their own parcel against the route.
If Your Land Also Faces the Eiger Express Pipeline
Martin County appears in both the approved Route 476 study area and the published route of the Eiger Express Pipeline, a planned 450-mile natural gas pipeline that is expected to begin construction in 2027. There is also a larger overlap between Eiger’s 18-county route and the two Oncor 765 kV projects still pending at the Commission: Big Hill to Sand Lake and Bell County East to Big Hill. If you own land in these overlapping areas, it is reasonable to plan for the possibility of two separate takings across the same property.
Facing two condemnors on one tract is not simply twice as much paperwork. When a second easement is sought on land that already carries one, the condemnor will generally argue that the additional burden causes little further harm, and will value its offer accordingly. Under Texas law, each taking has to be evaluated on its own merits. But the order in which those easements are negotiated, settled, or tried could meaningfully change what a landowner ends up recovering in damages to the remainder across both projects.
Common Questions About Transmission Line Condemnation
What You Should Do Before You Sign Anything
- Right-Of-Entry and Survey Agreements: These show up early. They are presented as routine, and they were drafted by the condemnor’s lawyers. Have one reviewed before you sign it.
- The First Appraisal Offer: Remember that an initial offer is a starting position, not a final valuation. It rarely accounts for what a wide permanent easement and tall lattice towers do to the remainder of a working ranch or farm.
- Your Parcel and the Approved Centerline: Confirm whether your tract is actually on the approved route, and ask Oncor in writing for the survey plat covering your property along with the proposed easement instrument itself. What that document says about width, structure placement, access, and surface restoration will govern your land permanently.
- Any Existing Easements: If a pipeline or another power line already crosses your property, find those documents. What you agreed to years ago may shape what happens now.
Is Oncor Coming Across Your Land?
At Dawson & Sodd, we have been protecting the property rights of Texas landowners for over 100 years. We have never represented a utility, a pipeline company, or a condemning authority.
Our attorneys have handled transmission line and utility condemnation cases across Texas for decades, through negotiation, Special Commissioners’ hearings, and jury trials. We know how these companies approach easement negotiations, we know which terms matter over the long life of an easement, and we work with appraisers who understand what a high-voltage line does to the value of an entire property rather than just the strip beneath it.
If your property is along Route 559 or Route 476, or someone has already contacted you about survey access or an easement, contact Dawson & Sodd for a free consultation.
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Learn more about Oncor’s 765 kV transmission line projects.
