The burgundy line shows the route recently approved by the Public Utilities Commission for electric lines that will transmit wind-generated energy from Brown County to a substation at the west end of Kempner. The Public Utilities Commission on Thursday selected two routes for 345-kilovolt transmission lines that will carry windgenerated energy through Lampasas County.

The PUC picked route 137 for the Brown County to Kempner substation section of Oncor Electric Delivery’s renewable energy project and chose route 207 for the Kempner to Killeen portion.

Nearly a year after the first Lampasas County public hearings, the PUC decision will allow easement acquisition to begin inside a zone developed to meet state mandates for renewable energy use. Oncor spokeswoman Catherine Cuellar and landowner activist Lynn Eyberg, president of Save the Lampasas River Inc., both praised the ruling, which slightly modified earlier recommendations by administrative law judges.

A thick black line indicates route 207, recently selected by the Public Utilities Commission as the path for Oncor electric transmission lines between Kempner and Killeen. A legend at the bottom of the map explains the symbols used to mark major roads near the transmission route. COURTESY ONCOR Route 207, which the PUC picked instead of Oncor’s preferred path for the Kempner-to- Killeen electric lines, will limit property and habitat disruption, Mrs. Eyberg said.

“We feel that 95 percent of our concerns were addressed, so we are really happy,” Mrs. Eyberg said.

The PUC ruling capped a months-long process during which Oncor officials sought line placement recommendations from affected property owners, Ms. Cuellar said.

“I think today was a real success, both for the intervenors from Save the Lampasas River and for Oncor Electric Delivery, and was an affirmation of how the process works,” Ms. Cuellar said.

“Oncor said all along we would

Continued from page 1 be happy to build whichever route the PUC selected,” she added.

Instead of following an administrative law judge’s recommendation to use route 140 from Brownwood to Kempner, the PUC selected route 137 — despite the estimated $6 million cost increase it will cause. Route 137 will run southward through the central part of Lampasas County, avoid the Lampasas Municipal Airport, and skirt the northeastern part of the city before proceeding east toward Kempner between County Roads 3010 and 3050.

Links J, G and KKK1, which create an L-shaped path around the northeast side of Lampasas, will allow route 137 to avoid the Oak Vista Ranch gated residential development off CR 3430.

Ron Kuker, Oak Vista broker, said route 137 is much better for the neighborhood than route 140, which he said would have cut through three lots in the development and would have gone “right through the center of the gate.”

The PUC’s route change will protect the hilltop views of Oak Vista residents and potential buyers, Kuker said.

“I know the developers of it are really, really happy,” Kuker said. “I think it will be a very positive development.”

Both of the recently approved electric line pathways will incorporate monopoles — smaller structures with narrower easements than the lattice towers Oncor suggested — in certain areas.

Oncor is required to use monopoles in and just north of Lampasas, “specifically starting at the intersection of County Road 3421 and continuing to County Road 3050,” according to a memorandum by PUC commissioner Kenneth W. Anderson Jr.

On the Kempner-to-Killeen segment, monopoles will be used from the southern terminus of link PP2 to a point about one mile north, Mrs. Eyberg said. Monopoles also will be used for a few miles from section UU eastward to State Highway 195.

By ordering limited use of monopoles, PUC commissioners responded to official requests — including resolutions by the Lampasas County Commissioners Court, and the Lampasas and Kempner City Councils — from affected communities, Ms. Cuellar said.

“That’s what we’ve said all along, that we would take community standards into consideration,” she said. “We’re very pleased with the participation of the local communities.”

Save the Lampasas River, like other “intervenors” who advocated changes to Oncor’s proposed routes, supported monopoles because they require approximately 80-foot-wide easements. The easements for lattice towers, Mrs. Eyberg said, are about 160 feet wide. Monopoles also present less of a threat than lattice towers to two kinds of nesting eagles that forage along the Lampasas River, Mrs. Eyberg added.

“You have less disruption to the environment,” she said.

Represented by Cathy Webking of Austin-based Webking Law Firm, and by environmental lawyer Mary Carter of Houston firm Blackburn & Carter, STLR accomplished its main objectives at the recent PUC hearing, Mrs. Eyberg said.

“If our goal was to save the Lampasas River, we achieved that in stages,” she said.

STLR members’ main concern, the group president said, is at the intersection of route sections PP2 and TT. Although route 207 allows much more distance between electric lines and the Lampasas River than Oncor’s preferred path would have, the path forms a sharp angle at PP2 and TT. Unless agreements can be made to move the transmission lines, structures may be constructed within 900 feet of the river at that point, Mrs. Eyberg said.

It may be possible to curve the route slightly, Ms. Cuellar said, in order to increase the distance between transmission lines and the river.

“We’ll just try to see how the affected property owners in that area feel about that,” the Oncor spokeswoman said.

Oncor officials will meet with landowners whose properties will be affected by the electric line routes. Each landowner will be assigned a right of way agent — a contract Oncor employee — to cooperate with property owners’ specific requests, when possible, related to line construction, Ms. Cuellar said.

Right of way agents will negotiate easement purchases and property surveys relevant to electric line construction. Agents also will serve as the “go-to person” for information for the landowners they represent, Ms. Cuellar said.

Construction tentatively is scheduled for completion in 2013. In 2005, the Texas Legislature mandated the doubling of Texas’ renewable energy use by 2013, Ms. Cuellar said.

Although state mandates make transmission line construction inevitable, Oncor will try to minimize the effects of easement clearing and line construction, the spokeswoman said.

“Everything once the line is completed will be restored to make sure the impact is minimal,” she added.

PUC’s recent decisions, Ms. Cuellar said, attempted to balance property owners’ concerns with the state’s need for reliable, renewable energy.

“There was applause from the stakeholders when the commission announced its decision,” Ms. Cuellar said. “For people to be clapping when the commissioners announced their decision really affirms that we have a good process in place.”