Administrative law judges from the State Office of Administrative Hearings have officially issued a recommendation to deny an application with the Public Utility Commission of Texas for a large transmission line project looming over Burnet County. 

The judges issued their recommendation on Thursday, Aug. 20, sharing that they did not believe that the developers’ application established that their project was not necessary for “service, accommodation, convenience, or safety of the public.” The judges also noted that the application should be denied due to approximately 1,400 landowners not being notified properly, an issue that was brought to light in May of this year. 

The application in question is from Oncor Electric Delivery and the Lower Colorado River Authority to build hundreds of miles of 765 kilovolt transmission lines from Central Texas to West Texas as part of the Permian Basin Reliability Plan. In Burnet County, landowners and elected officials have been fighting against the line for over a year, due to its likely sizable impacts on local landowners, as the county lies within all possible routes of the project. 

The primary concerns of Burnet County landowners and officials have been private property impacts, ecological impacts, cultural impacts, and unknown health and safety factors associated with the 765 kV lines. The Bell County East to Big Hill transmission line would run through northern Burnet County, requiring hundreds of feet of easements on over 200 miles of lines, with 18-story towers every 1,000 feet. 

While the State Office of Administrative Hearings has issued its recommendation for denial, the decision is ultimately up to the Public Utility Commission of Texas. As of Monday, Aug. 24, no meeting had been set for a decision, but discussion of the matter is expected in September. 

Locally, Burnet County officials have been battling the lines from the beginning, having hired legal counsel to determine the county’s options in the fight, and holding countless hours of meetings and public discussion on the matter. Burnet County Precinct 4 Commissioner Damon Beierle, whose constituents would be most affected by the line, even went to the Capitol to provide his own testimony in July. 

“Obviously (the SOAH’s recommendation for denial) is great news from our perspective,” Beierle told DailyTrib. “To have that validation from judges that are respectable and unbiased is huge.”

Beierle acknowledged that the battle wasn’t over and that it was still up to the PUCT commissioners to make the final decision. 

“They could ignore (the recommendation) altogether,” he said. “But, they’re appointed by the governor to serve the people of Texas, and I hope that they take that service seriously.”

Dozens of state representatives and senators have also voiced their concerns about the transmission line project. Most recently, 30 Texas lawmakers have called upon the PUCT to completely deny the project until reforms could be made to the application process. 

“The undersigned members of the Texas House of Representatives issue this statement calling for the (Public Utility Commission of Texas) to deny the applications for Certificates of Convenience and Necessity in the above five 765kV ultra-high  voltage transmission lines cases, and allow the Texas legislature to reform the CCN process to ensure transparent, fair treatment of Texas landowners,” reads the legislators’ Aug. 20 letter. 

Burnet County’s own state representative, House District 19 Rep. Ellen Troxclair, is one of the 30 legislators undersigned on the letter, and has been voicing her concerns about the transmission line project for months.

“We must address these issues in the upcoming session and deny these applications now,” Troxclair said in a statement issued on Friday, Aug. 21. 

Opposition to the lines had already been mounting at the state level, with dozens of Texas residents flooding the Capitol to voice their concerns during a hearing of theTexas Senate Committee on Business and Commerce on July 29. Ultimately, due to discrepancies with the project and the large public outcry, the committee’s chairman, Sen. Charles Schwertner, on July 31, called for a denial of the application. 

dakota@thepicayune.com