For months, rural communities across Central Texas have been fighting to stop the development of a high-voltage transmission line that would cut through their communities to power oil, gas, and data centers in West Texas. Now, landowners are navigating a fast-paced and highly-technical legal process, where efforts to protect one property may ultimately shift the burden to another.
“It’s just a giant extension cord from Central Texas to the Permian Basin,” said Beth Kunz, a landowner in Burnet County. “We don’t see any of the power, but we sure have to pay for it with our land and resources.”
The line would carve easements upwards of 200 feet wide through rural properties. With no substations planned along the route, none of the electricity would reach the communities it passes through, leaving landowners to shoulder the costs of infrastructure that solely benefits distant oil fields and data centers.
On March 26, Oncor Electric Delivery and the Lower Colorado River Authority Transmission Services filed an application with the Public Utility Commission of Texas to build a 765-kilovolt transmission line connecting Schleicher County to Bell County. The proposal outlines 122 possible routes stretching roughly 214 to 244 miles, with additional variations possible if different segments are combined. The Public Utility Commission of Texas, a five-person committee appointed by Governor Greg Abbott, can select any of those routes, meaning no community along the corridor is definitively in—or out—of its path. Their decision deadline is September 22.
Mia Sarot has been spearheading the community organizing in Burnet County, where multiple possible routes criss-cross neighborhoods, including her own. For months, she has been holding community meetings, sharing information with county residents through presentations and roundtables, and appearing before state and county officials to press for intervention.
“I didn’t even know what a transmission line was last summer,” Sarot said. But then her neighbors started receiving packets in the mail notifying them that their properties were within the possible paths of the transmission line. In August, a neighbor stopped Sarot in her driveway to ask for support. Soon after, community members started expressing concerns about how the line would affect the ecosystem, residents’ health, local property values, and utility prices. “Now I work on this stuff 80 hours a week.”
Sarot has been hosting community meetings and outreach events to help residents file to intervene in the transmission line. The intervention process lets affected people formally join a Public Utility Commission (PUC) case, submit input, and seek records, by filing a written request within 30 days of the application filing.
As of April 27, over a thousand parties have filed a motion to intervene, including private landowners, local environmental groups, The Comanche Nation, livestock companies, and local governments, including Burnet County.
A County Caught in the Crosshairs
All of the possible routes run through Burnet County, just at various sections of the county.
“There is a concern that we’ll end up wasting taxpayer money on things that may not be of fruition because all three lines are going to stay in Burnet County,” said Burnet County Judge Bryan Wilson during an April 1 meeting reported by The Daily Trib. “But that doesn’t necessarily mean that we shouldn’t advocate for our citizens, our landowners, and the health and safety of our community.”
The process for these transmission lines has been fast-tracked. In 2023, the Texas Legislature passed a bill that led to new rules under the Texas PUC’s Permian Basin Reliability Plan, cutting the approval timeline from one year to 180 days. The condensed schedule leaves less time for citizens and local governments to assess impacts, submit input, and engage in the decision-making process.
In the rapid scramble to defend themselves, Burnet County residents have come to realize that protecting their home could mean hurting their neighbors’ home.
Ron Boultinghouse can trace his family history in Burnet County back to 1853. Almost 40 years ago, he purchased a home near Lake Victor, which is now in the line of one of the proposed segments.
“I don’t want that line on top of anybody else, but I don’t want it on top of me,” Boultinghouse said. “I’m not real sure how to say that – ‘I’d rather it be on your place than on my place.’ Nobody should have to say that. It shouldn’t be that way at all.”
Susan Warren, who has lived on a working ranch in Burnet County since 1973, said unless the plans for the transmission line are paused and re-evaluated, this process is designed to create tension and division among neighbors.
“This is just really difficult because you’re pitting one neighbor against another,” said Warren. “I don’t know how you get around this. You’re just, you’re pushing it from one neighbor to the others, and that just seems so unfair, but that’s really what’s going to happen if they pick another line versus ours.”
The compressed timeline has left many residents on the defensive, worried about how the line could reshape every aspect of their lives, and eyeing other alternative routes.
Like Sarot, Warren spends hours every day helping her neighbors file intervention paperwork, keeping up with new filings, and sharing information with her community—time she only has since she recently retired.
“The short timeframe makes fighting this near impossible. I think if there was a longer period of time, some of the people who were sick, home schooling, and caring for elderly family members might have a little more opportunity to participate,” Warren said. “When you slam it down to 30 days and they already have those very hard life things going on, having the energy to fight is near impossible to squeeze in.”
For Boultinghouse, the commitment is firm. “I’ll be darned if I am not fighting this thing until the end,” he said.
Residents say that even if the transmission line doesn’t run directly through their property, its presence anywhere in the county will still affect their daily lives.
Warren is no stranger to large-scale infrastructure projects. Last year, the Matterhorn Express gas pipeline was installed across her ranch, cutting through hay fields, disrupting cattle grazing, and raising concerns about livestock safety. Now, a compressor station tied to that pipeline operates in her neighborhood, bringing persistent noise and new worries about its proximity to a proposed high-voltage transmission line.
Her concerns don’t end there. Warren also lives near the Firefly Aerospace test site, a 200-acre rocket testing and manufacturing facility in Briggs, Texas, where an explosion occurred last year. With rocket testing, natural gas infrastructure, and the prospect of new transmission lines converging in the same area, she says it feels impossible to escape the risks.
“It doesn’t matter if you live in the area where the transmission line is, the risk of danger is still here,” Warren said.
“I have loved ones and friends that live along each of those routes and that would suffer from this,” Sarot said. “I think everyone will still be affected. It’s changing the infrastructure for your county and for your area and for your neighbor.”
Sarot added that whatever happens next will shape the trajectory of future infrastructure development.
Under Public Utility Regulatory Act (PURA) guidelines, Texas prioritizes routing new transmission lines along existing corridors, like roads, railways, or other utility paths, to reduce disruption and simplify permitting. Once a line is built this way, it can make it easier for future projects to follow the same path, gradually forming a larger energy corridor.
“You’re essentially creating a corridor that invites additional infrastructure such as smaller transmission lines, substations, data centers, and battery storage, because those projects tend to follow ultra high-voltage transmission,” Sarot said. “That’s when people further away from these routes will really feel the impact, years from now, when additional infrastructure and new facilities could be proposed along these routes. But by then, the groundwork has already been laid. The time to fight is now.”
And once the transmission line is developed, there won’t be a chance to reassess.
“Once you build it, you can’t undo it,” Warren said.
A sign outside one of the properties that will be affected by the transmission in Burnet County, Texas. (Photo by Madeline de Figueiredo/The Daily Yonder)
The Rural Costs
Designed to support surging energy demand in the Permian Basin, the project would cost an estimated $1.6 billion to $1.9 billion, with nearly $400 million more allocated for substation and system upgrades.
No public analysis has outlined how the proposed transmission buildout would affect customer bills. However, estimates suggest Oncor’s planned line could lead to a notable increase. Residential rates are projected to rise by about 29%, adding more than $200 per year for the average household.
“We will end up paying for the line for decades in our monthly electric bills,” said Clare Nelson, a Burnet County resident who has been advocating against the transmission line. “And if we need more AC, if there’s a harsh winter and we need more power, we will not benefit at all.”
Warren said nobody is immune from the costs of the line.
“The sad part about it is, it ultimately affects every single body who lays their head down in the state of Texas, because you’re going to pay for it in your electric rates,” Warren said. “It’s disheartening.”
As of the end of 2025, data centers dominated Oncor’s backlog of requests for new power connections. A 2026 report showed 650 pending commercial and industrial projects, including roughly 255 gigawatts tied to data centers—far exceeding the approximately 18 gigawatts requested by other industries. One gigawatt can power upwards of 700,000 homes, meaning 255 gigawatts could power nearly 180 million homes.
High-voltage transmission lines can also affect local water systems. Construction disturbs soil, increasing erosion and sending sediment into nearby streams, while ongoing vegetation clearing reduces shade, raises water temperatures, and can accelerate evaporation from exposed water and soils. Cleared corridors and access roads may also alter natural drainage patterns and speed up stormwater runoff, increasing the risk of flooding.
In March, Burnet County raised their drought stage to level three, signaling below-average groundwater levels. Residents described collecting water in buckets while waiting for showers to warm up, using condensation catchers, and taking other conservation measures. Even so, they worry that new infrastructure could further strain already limited water supplies, along with the livestock, honeybees, and other plants and animals that define Central Texas ecosystems.
Melissa Duckworth, a landowner in Burnet County and a certified Texas Master Naturalist, has filed to intervene. One of the proposed segments cuts through her property near the San Gabriel River which recently flooded last July.
Melissa Duckworth and Mia Sarot look out over the banks of the San Gabriel in Burnet County, Texas. (Photo by Madeline de Figueiredo/The Daily Yonder)
The riverbanks were in full bloom as Duckworth warned that clearing an easement would disrupt habitat and drive away local wildlife. “We’ve had a lot of quail. They love bunch grasses, especially the Little Bluestem. So they come right back through here and lay their eggs since they are groundnesters,” Duckworth said. “But the easement would wipe a lot of this out and the quail would just leave.”
Duckworth said that nothing about this process feels promising.
“I don’t feel good about anything,” Duckworth said. “I know some people are feeling better, but I think it can be a bait and switch thing. I think there’s maybe a chance they won’t choose this segment [that we live on], but I am not confident.”
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