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Dear Editor,

Landowners in San Saba County have begun to organize to fight Oncor’s plans to construct a 345KV Transmission Line thru San Saba County. This transmission line with planned towers that are 150 feet tall and 160 feet wide, are intended only to carry electrical power from West Texas Windmills to metropolitan markets such as Austin, and Dallas instead of serving our local community, and would be a blight on the wild Colorado River at its crossings, not to mention the negative impact on property values in its path across the county.

Numerous reasons exist for this opposition: 1) aesthetic values (the viewscape of a property; 2) financial values (impact to the market value which is a function of productive and/or aesthetic values); 3) impact to intended usage of land ( including uncleared older habitat for wildlife); 4) safety ( increased incidence of lightning strikes and wildfires, as well as poorly understood effects of electromagnetic field on humans and animals; dangers to crop-dusting of agricultural fields; danger to Army aviation training in this designated area); 5) impact to wildlife and the environment that nurtures the wildlife; 6) potential Indian archaeological sites.

We take the position that the best interest of San Saba County landowners and of Texas electric ratepayers is served by Oncor building the transmission line in the shortest and straightest possible line segments from Brown station (south of Brownwood) which necessarily does not cross the Colorado River, taking advantage of existing easement corridors in that route instead of unnecessarily despoiling the Colorado and points in-between in San Saba County.

Oncor will make their decision on what route they prefer on Oct. 7th when they file their preference with the Public Utilities Commission of Texas. Thereafter, the PUC will take Oncor’s recommendation into consideration and decide next spring what the actual final route will be. It is critically important that Oncor and PUC hear from landowners of San Saba County. Towards this end, our San Saba County Commissioners have passed a resolution in support of the concerns mentioned above and are helping to lead and protect our County.

Any landowner who wishes to help us with this effort to represent landowner concerns to PUC and Oncor should contact Michael Usery 325/205-2141 or Roger Whatley 512/635-4468.

Signed, Roger Whatley