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Right of Way · Eminent Domain &The Public Utility Commission of Texas signed its order on August 28, 2026, granting Oncor a certificate for 242.6 miles of 765-kilovolt line running west from Dinosaur Switch, about 3 miles north of Glen Rose in Somervell County, to Longshore Switch, roughly 4.5 miles west of Forsan in Howard County. Thirteen counties lie along the approved centerline, making this the longer of the two segments the Commission cleared that day. The routing argument is finished; Oncor's agents now move to buying easements, tract by tract. Below: where the line actually runs, what a 200-foot strip takes off a working tract, and the parts of a first offer that most often get left out.
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 | Dinosaur Switch – Longshore Switch 765 kV Transmission Line Project |
| Applicant | Oncor Electric Delivery Company LLC |
| PUCT docket | No. 59315 · all filings |
| Application filed | February 19, 2026 |
| Approved | August 28, 2026 · read the order (PDF) |
| Approved route | Route 559 |
| Length | 242.6 miles |
| From | Dinosaur Switch, about 3 miles north of Glen Rose in Somervell County |
| To | Longshore Switch, about 4.5 miles west of Forsan in Howard County |
| Voltage & structures | 765 kV single circuit on self-supporting steel lattice towers |
| Right-of-way width | 200 feet (about 24.2 acres per mile) |
| Estimated cost | $2.24 billion |
| Target in service | 2028 |
| Oncor project line | 214.486.5841 |
| Public meetings held | June 2, 2025 — Big Spring — Ryan Hall June 3, 2025 — Sweetwater — Marqueza Conference Center June 4, 2025 — Stephenville — Cross Timbers Legacy Center |
Also searched as: Oncor 765 kV Glen Rose, Dinosaur to Longshore power line, ERCOT 765 kV Somervell County, Big Spring transmission line.
A one-page map of the approved centerline with the mileage in each county, drawn from Oncor’s own published route data. Print it, take it to your appraisal district, or send it to whoever is advising you.
Download the route map (Route 559)
This is the eastern half of Oncor’s 424-mile 765 kV build. The other half is Longshore–Drill Hole — Docket 59029, running to the Permian Basin. Howard County is crossed by both.
Enter an address to see roughly how far it sits from the approved centerline. You can also open the interactive map, which shows the approved route in gold and the alternative routes that were studied and not selected — useful if you were notified during the docket but are no longer on the chosen route.
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 approved centerline crosses 13 Texas counties. If your county is on this list and your property sits anywhere near the corridor, expect contact from a land agent.
Measured against Oncor's own published tract mapping, the approved centerline crosses more than 500 individual land tracts. Every one of those is a separate negotiation, and no two are worth the same.
The same 200-foot easement is worth very different amounts depending on where on this route it lands. This is what changes, county by county, and what tends to drive the number in each one.
Find your county below and tap it to open.
The line begins here, at the new Dinosaur Switch about three miles north of Glen Rose. Somervell is small, close to Dallas–Fort Worth, and heavily subdivided into recreational and residential tracts along the Paluxy. Per-acre values are high and tracts are small, so a 200-foot corridor takes a large share of many properties and the damage to the remainder is usually the biggest number in the file.
One of the fastest-growing counties on the route. Land around Granbury and Lake Granbury has been sold in small tracts for decades, much of it bought for a building site rather than for production. Where a corridor or a tower lands relative to that building site — and to the view from it — drives the value of the claim.
Dairy and forage country, with the operations around Stephenville that go with it. A corridor across hay meadows, silage ground or a pivot has an operating cost on top of the land cost, and dairy infrastructure is expensive to work around or replace.
Peanut, pecan and cattle country. Mature pecans inside a right-of-way are removed, and orchard replacement is nothing like a pasture per-acre rate. Field layout and irrigation on the peanut ground matter too.
Oak and mesquite pasture, pecans along the creeks, and a great deal of land held as much for hunting lease income as for cattle. Lease income affected by the corridor and construction traffic is a documentable loss that first offers rarely address.
Ranch and pasture country along the I-20 corridor, in tracts large enough that the corridor is a modest share of the whole — which is exactly the argument a low offer will lean on. Access roads, gates and cross-fencing are where the cost-to-cure sits.
Stock ranching and hunting country. Larger tracts, thinner markets, and comparable sales that take real work to develop properly. An appraisal built on the wrong comparables is the most common defect in offers here.
Wheat and cotton ground plus rangeland around Abilene, and a county that already carries significant wind and transmission infrastructure. Where a new corridor parallels or crosses existing lines, the cumulative effect on the remainder is a legitimate argument.
Cotton and small-grain farmland. This is the classic farm problem: a lattice tower inside a cultivated field costs turn rows, end rows and tractor hours every season for as long as it stands, and that recurring cost belongs in the valuation.
Ranching country around Lake Spence with large tracts and long distances. Permanent access roads built to reach the corridor are often the item with the most lasting effect on how the ranch operates.
Big ranch country with oil and gas activity layered on top. Where the surface owner does not own the minerals, the easement terms have to be read against what is already committed on that surface.
Cotton farming at the edge of the Permian, in a county with no incorporated city. Irrigation layout, pivot clearance and field access drive the loss here more than raw acreage does.
The line ends here at Longshore Switch, about four and a half miles west of Forsan, where it meets the Longshore–Drill Hole segment. Howard County is Permian ground — cotton, oilfield surface use and refining around Big Spring — and a landowner here may be dealing with both 765 kV projects at once.
Land use notes are general guidance for owners trying to understand what drives value on their stretch of the route. They are not an appraisal and not a prediction about any particular property. Every tract is valued on its own facts.
Send us the letter, the plat, or just your county and the nearest crossroads. We will tell you where your land sits against the approved centerline — and what a first offer on this route usually leaves out.
Free review by a senior consultant →Or call or text (469) 484-7960 — a senior consultant answers owners the same day.
Texas has never had a 765-kilovolt transmission line. The state's backbone has been built at 345 kV since the 1960s. Dinosaur–Longshore is the eastern half of the answer to a straightforward problem: West Texas is generating and consuming far more power than the existing network can move toward the population centers that need it.
This is the segment that carries that power east. It starts at the new Dinosaur Switch about three miles north of Glen Rose in Somervell County — within sight of the Comanche Peak generating station and at the doorstep of the Dallas–Fort Worth load — and runs 242.6 miles west across the Cross Timbers and the Rolling Plains to Longshore Switch near Forsan in Howard County. Everything the western segments collect in the Permian moves through this corridor to get to market.
The drivers the Commission cited are oil and gas electrification in the Permian Basin plus load growth that has nothing to do with oil and gas — data centers and cryptocurrency mining in particular. Oncor's published figures put one 765 kV line at the capacity of three double-circuit 345 kV lines, in a 200-foot corridor instead of roughly 480 feet.
That argument is a real one, and it is worth understanding, because it explains why opposition to the project as a whole did not succeed. It also explains why the money conversation is the one still open. The line is going to be built across Somervell, Hood, Erath, Comanche, Brown, Callahan, Coleman, Taylor, Runnels, Coke, Sterling, Glasscock and Howard counties. What each landowner is paid for it is not settled.
Approval of the route is the beginning of the landowner phase, not the end of it. Here is the sequence, and where your leverage sits in it.
Tap any step to see what happens.
Oncor mapped a study area, held public meetings, and developed dozens of alternative route links. Landowner comments filed at this stage genuinely moved routes.
Oncor filed for a Certificate of Convenience and Necessity. Landowners on the alternative routes received formal notice and could intervene.
The Commission selected one route from the alternatives. Route selection is now settled. What is not settled is what each landowner gets paid.
A land agent asks to enter and survey. The form they hand you is a legal document. You can negotiate its terms — scope, notice, timing, repair of damage, gates left as found — and you are not required to sign it on the spot. Signing a broad permission form gives away more than most people realize, and it costs you nothing to have it read first.
An appraiser hired by the utility values your property. This appraisal is the foundation of the offer. You are entitled to your own — and an independent appraisal that documents damages to the remainder is the single most effective tool for moving an offer.
Texas law requires the condemning entity to deliver a written offer and the Texas Landowner's Bill of Rights before it can proceed to condemnation. Read both. The offer will come with a response window — commonly 30 days — but a deadline in a letter is a negotiating posture, not a statute of limitations on your property.
If negotiation fails, the utility files a condemnation petition and a judge appoints three special commissioners — local landowners — who hold a hearing and set an award. Both sides present evidence. Documented damages win here.
Either side may object to the commissioners' award and take the case to court for a jury determination of just compensation.
An easement is not a sale. You keep title, you keep paying taxes on it, and in most cases you keep grazing or farming it. What you give up is control of a strip — permanently. On this route that strip runs through some of the most varied land the buildout touches, and the value of what you give up changes enormously from one end of the line to the other.
Oncor's published specification for its 765 kV lines is a 200-foot right-of-way. That is roughly 24.2 acres of permanent easement for every mile of line. Across the 242.6-mile Route 559 corridor that is close to 5,900 acres of private Texas land placed under permanent easement. Inside the strip you lose the right to build, to plant anything tall, and to do most things that put equipment or structures near the conductors. Steel lattice towers, not wood poles, sit inside it.
The eastern end of this line is not ranch country in the West Texas sense. Around Glen Rose, Granbury and Stephenville the land has been subdivided for decades into ranchettes, recreational tracts, hunting places and weekend properties bought by people working in Dallas–Fort Worth. Per-acre values here are multiples of what the same line crosses two hundred miles west, and the tracts are small enough that a 200-foot corridor can consume a meaningful share of the whole property.
That changes what matters in a valuation. On a 40-acre tract near Lake Granbury or the Paluxy, the compensable question is rarely the strip itself — it is what a high-voltage corridor and a lattice tower do to the building site, the view from it, the future subdivision potential of the remainder, and the price a buyer will pay for what is left. Erath County adds dairy and forage operations where a corridor across a hay meadow or a pivot has an operational cost on top of the land cost.
Through the middle counties the corridor crosses cattle country, peanut and pecan ground around Comanche and De Leon, and the oak and mesquite pasture around Brownwood, Baird and Coleman that a great many owners run as much for hunting lease income as for livestock. Pecan orchards are a specific problem: mature trees inside a 200-foot right-of-way come out, and orchard replacement is not a per-acre pasture number.
Hunting lease value is the item most often left out entirely. A corridor, an access road and construction traffic through the middle of a lease can affect what that lease is worth, and it is compensable when it can be documented. Fences, gates, cattle guards, cross-fencing and stock water crossings all have a cost to cure that belongs in the number rather than in a handshake.
West of Abilene the tracts get larger and the questions change again. Cotton and wheat ground around Ballinger and Garden City raises the classic farm problems: a tower inside a cultivated field, turn rows, end rows, pivot clearance and the tractor time lost working around a structure that is not going anywhere. On the larger ranches through Coke and Sterling counties the corridor may be a small percentage of the acreage, but the access road built to reach it, the gates left in your fence line, and where the crews cross are worth negotiating carefully.
By the time the line reaches Glasscock and Howard counties it is at the edge of the Permian, where a surface owner may not own the minerals and the corridor has to coexist with oilfield traffic and existing infrastructure. If that is your situation, the ordering and the terms in the easement document matter as much as the dollar figure.
In almost every one of these cases the largest compensable item is not the easement acreage. It is what the corridor does to the part you keep — the damage to the remainder — plus the cost to cure what the taking breaks. An offer built only on a per-acre rate for the strip has skipped the two categories that usually carry the most value.
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.
When the offer arrives it will not say "here is our opening bid." It will arrive as a package: a cover letter, an appraisal or a summary of one, a plat showing the part being acquired, an easement document already drafted, and in most cases a deadline. It is designed to look final. It is not final.
Every legitimate offer breaks down into the same three components. Find them, because the way they are weighted tells you where the offer is weak.
| 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, view, marketability | Frequently understated |
| Cost to cure | What it costs to fix what the taking broke — fences, gates, water lines, crossings, re-routed roads | Frequently omitted |
How much does the back half matter? In one recent Texas offer package our team reviewed, damages to the remainder made up about 39% of the total offer and cost to cure another 29% — nearly seven of every ten dollars came from something other than the raw land price. That package was a highway acquisition rather than a transmission easement, so the specifics differ. The structure does not. If your offer is almost entirely a per-acre land number with little or nothing for damages and cure, that is not because your property has none. It is because nobody quantified them.
The utility’s appraiser works for the utility. That does not make them dishonest — it makes them narrow. These are the categories that routinely go unquantified on the Dinosaur–Longshore corridor.
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. On the small recreational tracts around Glen Rose, Granbury and Stephenville that effect is often the single largest number in the file.
If the corridor or a lattice tower sits where the house was going to go, or in the view from where it already is, that is a loss to the remainder — and it is routinely left out.
Land in Somervell, Hood and Erath counties is regularly valued on its potential to be divided. A corridor through the middle of it can end that, and the loss is compensable.
Documented lease income affected by the corridor, the access road or construction traffic is a real loss with a real number behind it.
Mature pecans inside the right-of-way come out. Replacement cost for an orchard is not a pasture per-acre rate, and the same goes for barns, pens and irrigation.
Towers in a cultivated field near Ballinger or Garden City cost turn rows, end rows and tractor hours every season, permanently.
Cross-fencing, cattle guards, gates left open, and new lease roads across pasture all have a cost to cure that belongs in the offer, not in a handshake.
The extra working room during construction has its own rental value, for the term they will actually occupy it — which is usually longer than the first draft says.
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.
The Public Utility Commission of Texas approved Route 559 for this project on August 28, 2026, in Docket No. 59315. The corridor is settled. The exact centerline can still shift somewhat within the approved corridor when Oncor completes final survey and engineering, so a property near the edge of the corridor should confirm its status directly.
Oncor specifies a 200-foot right-of-way for its 765 kV lines. That works out to about 24.2 acres for every mile of line. Across the full 242.6-mile route that is roughly 5,881 acres of private land placed under permanent easement.
A land agent will ask you to sign a survey permission form. That form is a negotiable legal document — its scope, notice requirements, what happens to gates and fences, and who pays for damage are all terms you can change. You are not required to sign it the day it is handed to you, and refusing to sign immediately does not forfeit any right. Have it reviewed first.
No. A written offer is an opening position. Under Texas law a condemning entity must make a bona fide offer and deliver the Texas Landowner's Bill of Rights before it can condemn, and you are entitled to just compensation — which includes the value of the part taken plus damages to the remainder of your property. Most offers can be negotiated. The response deadline in the letter is the utility's schedule, not a legal cutoff on your rights.
Ultimately, yes. A utility holding a certificate from the PUCT has the power of eminent domain, so the question is almost never whether the line gets built — it is how much you are paid and on what terms. That is exactly why the negotiation matters, and why what goes into the easement document matters as much as the dollar figure.
It depends on the part acquired, what the corridor does to the rest of your property, and what it costs to fix what the taking breaks. Two neighbors with identical acreage can be owed very different amounts because one loses a pivot circle and a field road and the other loses a strip of pasture along a fence line. Anyone who quotes you a per-acre rate without seeing your property is guessing.
There is no single deadline, but the practical answer is that your leverage is highest before you sign anything and drops sharply afterward. Survey permission, the appraisal, and the written offer all happen over a period of months. Once an easement is executed it runs with the land permanently and is extremely difficult to modify.
No. National ROW is a right-of-way and condemnation consulting firm, and we represent property owners only — never the utility. We do not provide legal advice and no attorney-client relationship is created by contacting us. Much of what this process requires is valuation and negotiation work. When a case needs a lawyer, we say so and coordinate with condemnation counsel.
The review is free. If you engage us, we work on contingency — our fee is a percentage of the increase we secure above the original offer. If we do not improve your offer, you owe us nothing.
Everything is public. The complete docket, including Oncor's application, the routing study, landowner protests and the final order, is on the PUCT Interchange under Control Number 59315. We link to it directly in the sources at the bottom of this page, and we encourage you to read it.
Often it makes it larger, not smaller, as a share of the property. On a small high-value tract in Somervell, Hood or Erath County a 200-foot corridor can take a significant percentage of the land and land in the middle of the building site, the view or the future subdivision potential. The damage to the remainder on a 20-acre recreational tract can easily exceed the value of the easement acreage itself.
It can be, and it is one of the most commonly omitted items on this route. If you have documented lease income and the corridor, the access road or construction traffic affects what that lease is worth, that loss can be quantified and claimed. What it needs is documentation — lease history, rates and what specifically changed.
Not as pasture. Mature pecans inside a 200-foot right-of-way are removed and cannot be replanted there, and the correct measure reflects the productive value and replacement cost of an orchard, not a per-acre rate for the dirt under it. The same principle applies to barns, pens, irrigation and other improvements inside the strip.
More than the ground it stands on. A structure inside a cultivated field near Ballinger, Garden City or Abilene costs turn rows, end rows, tractor time and equipment wear every single season, permanently. That recurring operational cost is a legitimate component of damage to the remainder and is routinely absent from a first offer.
Thirteen: Somervell, Hood, Erath, Comanche, Brown, Callahan, Coleman, Taylor, Runnels, Coke, Sterling, Glasscock and Howard. The approved centerline crosses more than 500 individual land tracts across those counties, and each one is a separate negotiation.
That is possible — Dinosaur–Longshore ends at Longshore Switch near Forsan and Longshore–Drill Hole begins there, so Howard County landowners can be dealing with both approved projects. If that is your situation the two should be handled together rather than as separate conversations, because the combined effect on your remainder is part of the claim.
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 tract counts on this page were derived by measuring Oncor's own published approved-route geometry against public county boundaries and Oncor's public tract layer. They are close, not surveyed. Verify your specific parcel against the official filings before relying on anything here.
