The most disturbing challenge we face in the Hill Country today is the looming threat of massive transmission towers and broad clear-cut rights of way for the Competitive Renewable Energy Zone project. Almost every county in Texas Senate District 24 from Taylor in the north to Kerr in the south is slated for these gigantic new power lines. Ironically our State Senator Troy Fraser was the sponsor of Senate Bill 20, which created the CREZ program.

The most onerous features of the CREZ project are written into the law. Power of eminent domain condemnation given to private contractors, “open house” mass notification of impending condemnation, assignment of contracts to wealthy contributors all were there from the start. This program was designed to be a windfall for utility companies at the expense of the public.

After protests and organized opposition across his district, Senator Fraser has started to backpedal a little. He is quoted in the June 18 San Antonio Express News as saying the Public Utility Commission should perhaps review parts of the CREZ program. Natural gas prices and wind power investment are both down. “Market conditions have changed dramatically,” he said. There is no longer any economic justification for this project.

When Kimble County was threatened with the LCRA CREZ line, they responded with resolutions and lobbying to try to get the line moved to Mason. Mason replied with a resolution endorsing an IH-10 route. Now Kerr County is resisting the IH-10 line and resolving to send it to Mason. Instead of fighting one another, county to county, we should unite against the entire CREZ project.

Every week we learn more and more about the proposed coal-fired generators promoted as “back up” for the West Texas wind farms. We learn more and more about the dangers to wildlife and our citizens posed by turbines and super-high-voltage wires. We don’t have to shamefacedly say, “CREZ lines are a good thing, but someone else should have them.” We know this project is wrong, and we should be trying to stop it.

I’m writing Senator Fraser and anybody else I can think of to make this point. The CREZ project is environmentally dangerous and economically valueless and should be stopped.

Dan Barton

Mason