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Right of Way · Eminent Domain &On January 15, 2026 Oncor and LCRA Transmission Services Corporation asked the Public Utility Commission of Texas to approve a 765-kilovolt transmission line from Sand Lake Switch, about 6 miles northeast of Pecos in Ward County, to Big Hill Substation, about 13 miles northeast of Eldorado in Schleicher County. The application put 173 alternative routes on the table, ranging from roughly 197 to 222 miles, across a study area covering 12 counties. One of them will be chosen. Until the Commission signs an order, every landowner inside that study area is still a candidate, and the routing record is still open. This page explains the project, shows you the studied corridors, and tells you plainly what the offer will look like when it arrives.
Almost every condemnation case is a fight about a number, not about the law.
Almost every condemnation case is a fight about a number, not about the law.
A photo of the offer is enough — a senior consultant reads it and tells you what we see.
Text (469) 484-7960 →Four documented matters, each traced from the original offer letter to final settlement — two utility easements and two highway condemnations, labelled on each. Not an average and not a prediction; when we look at yours and think the number is close to right, we tell you so. National ROW is a right-of-way consulting firm, not a law firm, and nothing here is legal advice.
| Official project name | Big Hill Switch – Sand Lake Switch 765 kV Transmission Line Project |
| Applicants | Oncor Electric Delivery Company LLC and LCRA Transmission Services Corporation |
| PUCT docket | 59182 |
| Application filed | January 15, 2026 |
| Intervention deadline | February 16, 2026 (passed) |
| Current stage | Exceptions to the proposal for decision were filed September 2, 2026. A Commission decision is expected shortly. |
| Routes studied | 173 alternative routes |
| Length | Approximately 197 to 222 miles depending on the route chosen; the endpoints are about 177 miles apart |
| From | Sand Lake Switch, about 6 miles northeast of Pecos, Ward County |
| To | Big Hill Substation, about 13 miles northeast of Eldorado, Schleicher County |
| Counties in the study area | 12 |
| Voltage & structures | 765 kV on self-supporting steel lattice towers |
| Right-of-way width | 200 feet, Oncor’s published width for 765 kV |
| Target in service | Winter 2030 |
| Oncor project line | Big Hill - Sand Lake, project 1021 in Oncor’s public CCN mapping service |
Also searched as: Big Hill to Sand Lake 765 kV, Oncor LCRA 765 kV Ward County, Docket 59182 route, 765 kV Pecos County, San Angelo transmission line right of way.
One page showing all 106 corridor links filed in Docket 59182, which counties each one crosses, and how many links touch each county — drawn from Oncor’s own published project data. Print it, take it to your appraisal district, or send it to whoever is advising you. No route has been approved; this is what is on the table.
Download the study-corridor map (Docket 59182)
This is one segment of Oncor’s Texas 765 kV build. The two already-approved segments are Dinosaur–Longshore, Docket 59315 and Longshore–Drill Hole, Docket 59029, which crosses Ector and Reeves counties too.
Enter an address to see roughly how far it sits from the nearest corridor Oncor and LCRA put on the table. No route has been chosen on this project, so every one of the 173 filed alternatives is still live. Being close to a studied corridor does not mean the line will cross you — and being a few miles off one does not mean it will not.
Related reading: what we do on a transmission line easement and the full Texas 765 kV docket tracker.
Tell us about your property. A senior consultant reads every one of these and calls you within the hour, 8am–6pm Central, Monday to Friday. Outside those hours, first thing the next morning.
Your case is in review. A senior consultant reads everything you shared and calls you within the hour, 8am–6pm Central, Monday to Friday. Outside those hours, first thing the next morning.
In the meantime, don't sign anything and don't feel pressured to respond to their representatives.
The application put 173 alternative routes across 12 Texas counties. We measured the 106 corridor links Oncor has actually published against county boundaries: they reach 10 of those 12. Ector and Winkler are named in the case style but no filed link touches them. No route has been chosen, so a tract anywhere inside a filed corridor can still end up on the line.
Crane, Ward, Upton and Crockett carry the most filed links — 25, 23, 20 and 19 of the 106. Tom Green carries one. That is a rough measure of exposure, not a prediction: the Commission can pick any combination that connects the two endpoints. Ector and Reeves also sit on Oncor’s already-approved Longshore–Drill Hole line, Docket 59029, so check the docket number on your letter.
Running from the Ward County end toward Big Hill in Schleicher County. Because no route has been chosen, none of these counties is safe and none is certain — what follows is what is actually at stake in each one.
Find your county below and tap it to open.
The line starts here at Sand Lake Switch, about six miles northeast of Pecos. Oilfield surface use, sand country and the Monahans dunes. A landowner here may already carry pipelines, gathering lines and lease roads, and a 200-foot transmission corridor on top of that is a cumulative-burden argument, not a first-easement argument.
Delaware Basin drilling on one side and irrigated ground around Pecos and Balmorhea on the other. Reeves is also crossed by Oncor’s already-approved Longshore–Drill Hole line, so two separate 765 kV dockets can reach the same landowner. Irrigated acreage and the pivots that serve it are where the severance argument lives.
Also named in the case style with no filed corridor reaching it. Winkler carries heavy oilfield and frac-sand surface use, and it does sit near the approved 59029 route — so a letter here is worth checking against that docket rather than this one.
Long-established Permian production with dense surface infrastructure and thin ranching between it. The question in Crane County is usually access — where the corridor crosses lease roads, tank battery routes and gathering lines, and who repairs what after construction.
Named in the case style, but no corridor filed in this docket reaches Ector County — we checked the 106 published links against county boundaries. If you are in Ector County and a letter has arrived, it is almost certainly the already-approved Longshore–Drill Hole line, Docket 59029, where right-of-way acquisition has already started. Different docket, different stage, different conversation.
Oil production north of Rankin with ranching between the leases. Upton tracts are typically large, which means the remainder is large — and the remainder is where the money usually is on a 765 kV taking.
Permian production around Big Lake with dryland farming and grazing. A corridor across working farm ground raises pivot interference, turn rows and field-shape damage that a per-acre offer does not address.
One of the largest counties in Texas by area, and Edwards Plateau ranch country — sheep, goats, cattle, and hunting leases that carry real annual income. A transmission corridor through a hunting pasture affects the lease value of the whole pasture, not the acres inside the easement.
Concho Valley ranching with wind development already in the county. Where a landowner has an existing wind or solar lease, or is negotiating one, a 765 kV corridor can foreclose siting on part of the tract — that is a compensable effect on the remainder and it is routinely left out of a first offer.
The line ends here at Big Hill Substation, about thirteen miles northeast of Eldorado. Ranching and hunting country with substantial existing transmission already converging on Big Hill. Landowners near an existing substation often hear that they are “already used to lines” — that is a negotiating posture, not a valuation principle.
San Angelo, the irrigated Concho bottoms, and the acreage tracts that ring the city. Tom Green has the most rural-residential exposure in the study area: small tracts where a 200-foot corridor takes a meaningful share of the property and hits the building site, not just the back pasture.
Irrigated farming around Fort Stockton, oil and gas across the rest, and a growing amount of utility-scale solar. Solar and transmission compete for the same flat, close-to-line ground, so a corridor here can take the part of the tract that had the highest and best use.
Every one of these descriptions points at the same thing: the strip is the easy part of the valuation. What a 765 kV corridor does to the rest of the tract — access, irrigation, lease income, siting, resale — is the part a first offer usually prices at zero.
We will tell you where your land sits against the filed corridors — and what a first offer on a 765 kV taking usually leaves out.
Free review by a senior consultant →Or call or text (469) 484-7960 — a senior consultant answers owners the same day.
Electric load in the Permian Basin has grown faster than the transmission built to serve it. Oilfield operations that once ran on diesel and field gas now run on grid power, and large new loads — processing, compression, water handling, and increasingly data centers — have queued up in a part of Texas whose transmission backbone was designed for a much smaller demand.
The Legislature directed ERCOT to plan for that growth, and ERCOT’s Permian Basin reliability planning concluded that the region needed a step change rather than more of the same. The Public Utility Commission of Texas then decided the backbone would be built at 765 kilovolts — the first lines at that voltage anywhere in Texas. Big Hill–Sand Lake is one segment of that backbone.
The practical consequence for a landowner is that this is not a project that gets cancelled. The need has been decided at the state level; what remains open in Docket 59182 is which of 173 filed corridors the Commission picks, and after that, what each affected owner is paid.
765 kV also means bigger hardware than most Texas landowners have dealt with. Oncor builds these on self-supporting steel lattice towers inside a 200-foot permanent easement — roughly five times the height of an ordinary distribution pole, on a strip about two-thirds the width of a football field is long.
Docket 59182 is late in the process but not finished. Here is where it actually stands and what follows.
Tap any step to see what happens.
Oncor and LCRA TSC mapped a study area across 12 counties, held public meetings and developed 173 alternative route links. Landowner comments filed at this stage genuinely moved routes.
Docket 59182 opened. The applicants asked for a certificate of convenience and necessity for a 765 kV line from Sand Lake Switch in Ward County to Big Hill Substation in Schleicher County.
The date by which a landowner had to formally intervene to become a party. That date has passed, which affects your standing in the docket — it does not affect your right to be paid just compensation for a taking.
The case was heard and a proposal for decision issued. The applicants filed exceptions on September 2, 2026. This is the last round of briefing before the Commission acts.
The Commission selects one route and signs a final order. That order is what turns a study area into a centerline, and it is the moment your tract either is or is not on the line.
Land agents ask for written permission to enter and survey. This is the first document most owners are asked to sign, it is negotiable, and it is where a great deal of leverage is given away for nothing.
The company orders an appraisal and makes a written offer. Under Texas law that offer has to be a bona fide offer, but bona fide is a procedural standard — it is not a promise that the number is right.
The company files, three special commissioners are appointed, and they hold a hearing on value. Either side can object to the award and take it to court.
Oncor’s published target for completion.
A 200-foot permanent easement across a mile of your property is a little over 24 acres inside the strip alone. On this project the strip is rarely the expensive part. What follows is what a 765 kV corridor actually does to a West Texas tract, in the order landowners tend to discover it.
A transmission easement is not a sale of the strip. You still own it, still pay taxes on it, and still cannot build on it, plant tall crops in it, or put permanent structures in it. On grazing land the strip stays grazeable; on irrigated ground, near a building site, or on a tract with a solar or wind lease, the loss of use is real and it is compensable.
Across Crane, Ector, Ward, Winkler and Reeves counties, most surface is already carrying pipelines, gathering lines, disposal routes and lease roads. Land agents treat that as an argument for paying less — you are used to easements. The valuation argument runs the other way: each additional corridor takes from a shrinking remainder of usable surface, and the cumulative burden is what a buyer prices.
The same logic applies to a tract that already has an existing transmission line. Being near Big Hill Substation in Schleicher County does not make the next 200 feet free.
Construction on a 765 kV line is heavy. Tower foundations, crane pads, pulling sites and access roads all sit outside the permanent strip, usually under a temporary construction easement that is negotiated separately and is frequently priced as an afterthought. Where those roads cross your ranch roads, gates, cattle guards, pivots and fences, the terms of the crossing — how many, where, who maintains them, and for how long — belong in writing.
On the irrigated ground around Pecos, Fort Stockton, Balmorhea and the Concho bottoms, a corridor that clips a pivot circle takes far more than the acres inside the easement. A pivot that can no longer complete its arc devalues the entire circle it serves, and that effect belongs in damages to the remainder, not in the per-acre price of the strip.
In Crockett, Irion and Schleicher counties, hunting lease income is a real and documentable revenue stream. A corridor through a pasture affects the lease value of the pasture, not just the strip. If you have lease history, it is evidence.
Flat, open ground near existing transmission is exactly what solar developers look for. A 765 kV corridor across the buildable part of a tract can foreclose that use. Highest and best use is a valuation question, and a planned or optioned use that the taking destroys is part of the case, not an aspiration.
A senior consultant will walk your numbers with you — the easement acreage, what it does to the remainder, and the value the first offer tends to leave on the table. No cost and no obligation.
Free review by a senior consultant →Or call or text (469) 484-7960 — a senior consultant answers owners the same day.
Once the Commission signs an order and your tract is on the chosen route, the sequence is survey, appraisal, written offer. Under Texas Property Code Chapter 21 that first written offer has to be a bona fide offer supported by an appraisal. Bona fide is a procedural test. It does not mean the number is correct, and it does not mean the appraisal looked at everything it should have.
| Component | What it pays for | Typically |
|---|---|---|
| Value of the part acquired | The strip itself, priced per acre against comparable sales | Largest single line |
| Damages to the remainder | Lost value to everything you keep — severance, access, layout, irrigation, marketability | Frequently understated |
| Cost to cure | What it costs to fix what the taking broke — fences, gates, cattle guards, crossings, reseeding, drainage | Often omitted entirely |
| Temporary construction easement | Extra ground used during construction, separate from the permanent strip | Priced as an afterthought |
An offer that consists of one per-acre number multiplied by the acres in the strip has quietly priced three of those four lines at zero.
Eight things that are compensable, that landowners on West Texas takings routinely are not paid for, and that a per-acre offer does not address.
Tap each one to see what it means on your tract.
A 200-foot high-voltage corridor can reduce the market value of your whole tract, not just the strip. Buyers of West Texas surface price a transmission corridor in.
A corridor that clips a pivot circle or splits a field costs you the productivity of the whole unit, not the acres inside the easement.
Where their trucks enter, how often, and what happens to your gates, ranch roads, cattle guards and fences during and after construction.
Extra ground taken during construction — pads, pulling sites and access — negotiated separately from the permanent strip and routinely underpriced.
Hunting leases, grazing leases, and solar or wind options. A corridor across the tract affects the lease, not just the easement acres.
If your surface already carries pipelines, gathering lines and lease roads, each new corridor takes from a smaller remainder. That is an argument for more, not less.
Ruts, compaction, caliche spread, drainage and re-seeding — who repairs what, to what standard, for how long. Put it in writing before you sign.
Texas Tax Code § 23.55(f) provides that rollback tax sanctions do not apply when the change of use results from a sale for right-of-way or from a condemnation. Confirm it with your own appraisal district — and ask separately what the corridor does to ag use on the remainder.
Send it over with their appraisal if they gave you one — a photo of the pages is enough. A senior consultant reads it and tells you what their number left out, what we would argue for, and whether it can be moved.
Free review by a senior consultant →Or call or text (469) 484-7960 — a senior consultant answers owners the same day.
We are on the owner's side of the right-of-way. We are paid out of the increase, which means we do not get paid unless you do better.
Send us whatever they sent you — a survey permission form, a letter, an appraisal, an offer. We read it and tell you plainly where it is weak. No charge, no obligation.
We bring in independent, certified appraisers to value the part acquired and, critically, to document damages to the remainder and cost to cure.
We deal with the land agents and their appraisers directly, with documentation behind every number, so you are not negotiating alone against people who do this full time.
Our fee is a percentage of the increase above the original offer. If we do not improve it, you owe us nothing.
Tap any question to see the answer.
No. As of September 9, 2026 there is no final order in PUCT Docket 59182. The applicants filed exceptions to the proposal for decision on September 2, 2026, which is the last round of briefing before the Commission acts, and Oncor’s own public mapping service still shows every one of the 106 filed corridor links on this project as proposed rather than approved. A decision is expected shortly.
You lost party status in the docket, which is about participating in the routing case. You did not lose your right to just compensation. If the chosen route crosses your land, the company still has to make a bona fide written offer supported by an appraisal, and you can still negotiate it, reject it, and take it to special commissioners. Those are two different things and land agents sometimes let owners confuse them.
Oncor’s published right-of-way width for 765 kV is approximately 200 feet. The structures are self-supporting steel lattice towers, typically 155 to 160 feet tall, with an estimated maximum of just under 200 feet. For comparison, an ordinary distribution pole is about 34 feet above ground.
Check the docket number on the letter. Ector and Reeves counties sit on both this study area and the already-approved Longshore–Drill Hole line, Docket 59029, where right-of-way acquisition has already begun. A letter in Odessa or Pecos is more likely to be 59029 than 59182, and the two are at completely different stages. Send us what you received and we will tell you which project it belongs to.
Survey permission is a document you are asked to sign, and what it allows is negotiable — who comes, when, what they may do, what they must restore, and what notice you get. Signing the form as presented is the single most common way a landowner gives up leverage before the conversation about money has even started. Have it reviewed first.
Yes. A transmission easement is not a purchase of the land. You keep title, you keep paying taxes on it, and you keep whatever use does not conflict with the line — which on a 200-foot 765 kV corridor rules out structures, tall crops and most permanent improvements. That retained-but-restricted status is exactly why the damages-to-the-remainder part of the valuation matters so much.
Watch the docket. Corridors get combined, shifted and substituted between the filing and the final order, and a tract that was a mile off a filed link can end up on the chosen route. Nothing is settled until the order is signed. Checking your address against the studied corridors on this page takes a few seconds and costs nothing.
Nothing up front. We work on contingency — our fee is a percentage of the additional compensation we secure above their first offer. If it does not move, you owe us nothing. We are owner-side only, nationwide, since the 1980s, and we have never worked for a condemning agency or utility. We are not a law firm and not a tax advisor; legal counsel is coordinated when your case requires it.
Survey permission form, letter, appraisal, easement draft, offer — whatever stage you are at, we will read it and tell you where it is weak. Free, and there is no obligation to go further.
Free review by a senior consultant →Or call or text (469) 484-7960 — we answer owners the same day.
County lists and study-area figures on this page were taken from the applicants’ own filings in PUCT Docket 59182 and from Oncor’s published project materials, and the corridors drawn on the map are read live from Oncor’s public CCN mapping service. No route has been approved, so no mileage-by-county figures are given — they do not exist yet.
