Residents protest high-voltage power lines that could skirt Dinosaur Valley State Park

From The Texas Tribune:

GLEN ROSE — This small North Texas town is known for the preserved dinosaur tracks embedded in the limestone beds of the Paluxy River — evidence of prehistoric giants roaming the area over 100 million years ago.

Dinosaur Valley State Park, where about 230,000 visitors a year come to see the tracks, is the town’s economic engine. But residents are worried that it’s being threatened by a proposed high-voltage transmission line with massive towers that would partially encircle the 1,580-acre park southwest of Fort Worth.

The line is meant to fortify the state’s electrical grid, reduce power outages during peak demand periods and help electrify oil and gas drilling operations in the Permian Basin.

But residents in and around Glen Rose are fighting the project, claiming it would be a jarring industrial intrusion on one of the state’s most cherished natural treasures.

Chip Joslin, a Somervell County commissioner, says if the transmission lines are built next to the park, their tall towers would create a steel cage around the park.

“It’s going to be horrific,” he said.

Glen Rose Mayor Joe Boles says the towers would ruin “the primitive, prehistoric” appearance of the park.

“We will lose a lot of visitors [and] will lose the natural beauty,” he said.

Oncor Electric, the state’s largest energy delivery company, plans to build a 765 kilovolt transmission line, which would be the highest voltage lines to be built in Texas. One of three possible connections to a proposed switch station nearby would circle around the perimeter of the state park before stretching roughly 250 miles from the park to an existing substation in Howard County in West Texas.

Oncor is expected to finalize potential routes with the Public Utility Commission of Texas, the state’s energy regulator, in February.

The Oncor project is just part of a massive state push to expand the power grid to keep ahead of surging demand driven by population growth, the conversion of the state’s biggest oil patch from gas to electricity and the influx of hundreds of energy-intensive data centers and cryptocurrency mines.

The transmission lines will require a right of way roughly 200 feet wide to be cleared and will stretch across the state, crossing hundreds of miles of public and private land. While the height of the towers has not been disclosed, in other parts of the country, such towers are typically 130 to 140 feet tall.

At a rally earlier this month, more than 120 locals assembled in front of the courthouse square to listen to city, county and state government officials speak against putting the power lines next to the park. Grassroots groups like the Dinosaur Valley–Paluxy River Protection Alliance had a sign-making table, sold T-shirts, and asked attendees to write letters to send to Oncor. The group warns that the transmission line could damage wildlife habitat, migratory bird corridors and the local tourism economy anchored by the state park.

Republican state Rep. Helen Kerwin, who has lived in Glen Rose for 50 years, told the crowd she was “heartbroken” when she learned the proposed route could wrap around what she calls the “crown jewel” of Texas’ park system.

“We are not against Oncor… We just want them to reconsider that very short stretch,” she said.

As it prepares to finalize its plan, Oncor said it has communicated with 400 different land owners along the project’s potential routes and conducted three public meetings for local residents during the summer.

“Oncor has extensive experience building and operating transmission infrastructure across the state,” said Kerri Dunn, an Oncor spokesperson, in an email. “We also recognize that this is a significant transmission project and a new voltage level for our state, which is why we will continue to engage with communities across the project area as it progresses.”

Oncor noted that state law requires the Public Utility Commission to consider recreation and park areas, historical and aesthetic values and environmental integrity, among other items, when reviewing proposed transmission line routes.

Once the company has submitted its plan to the agency in February, the public will have further opportunity to submit written comments. And landowners may request a state administrative hearing if they believe their land will be adversely impacted, according to the PUC.

Texas electricity demand projected to double in five years

The Oncor installation is part of a $15 billion state government plan launched two years ago by the Legislature, which ordered energy regulators to devise a major statewide electric infrastructure expansion.

The state is forecasting 150 gigawatts of electric demand by 2030, according to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages the state’s power grid. That’s nearly double the state’s peak demand in 2025.

“The numbers are pretty eye-popping,” said Matthew Boms, executive director of the Texas Advanced Energy Business Alliance, an industry trade group. “What it comes down to is, Texas can grow or it can get constrained. I think that ERCOT is taking some pretty bold steps to choose growth.”

Oncor and other companies plan to build three corridors of 765 kilovolt lines that will send more electricity from the eastern half of the state, which has more electricity production, to West Texas, where demand is soaring because of electrification of oil and gas drilling operations and the arrival of data centers and crypto mines, according to ERCOT.

Oncor is the biggest player and plans to spend about $7.5 billion on the project, according to a November earnings report. The company can receive up to a 9.7% return on investment spread throughout the life of the transmission lines that will be baked into electric customers’ bills.

It’s unclear how much energy bills could increase, but energy experts say the investment will reduce electricity costs in the long run by relieving bottlenecks in the power grid.

Like vehicle traffic, the electrons in power lines can also become congested if there is not adequate capacity to support the demand, said Michael Jewell, an energy attorney and expert. ERCOT raises electricity prices during congested periods when demand peaks, he said.

“People are using more electricity, and we have more people moving to the state,” Jewell said. “The grid needs to grow to accommodate that.”

To that end, thousands of more miles of power lines are planned in the coming years across the state.

On Tuesday, ERCOT approved another 1,109 miles of 765 kV transmission lines as part of a separate project in East Texas.

Local concerns

For Glen Rose and the surrounding areas, tourism drives a large share of the local economy — the county estimates that each visitor spends roughly $12 in the community — and dinosaurs are woven into nearly every corner of town. A field of holiday-lit dinosaur sculptures greets drivers entering Somervell County on Highway 67. Businesses around the courthouse square display replicas and murals.

In 1997 the Texas Legislature officially designated Glen Rose the “Dinosaur Capital of Texas.”

Locals call the park the beginning of the Texas Hill Country, with its 33-mile long Paluxy River, a tributary of the Brazos River, and its rugged limestone ridges dotted with Ashe juniper, Texas red oak and mesquite, with grasses and shrubs crowding the hillsides.

Paleontological and historic sites used by various Native American groups are located throughout the park, according to The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

The park is a haven for wildlife: birders flock here to see wild turkeys, the endangered golden-cheeked warblers and black-capped vireos that nest in the area.

Ian Seamons, a city hall advocate for the nonprofit Environment Texas, said clearing trees and vegetation for transmission lines could create a barrier between previously connected habitats. This can affect wildlife movement, though a utility easement is likely less disruptive than, say, an interstate highway.

Boms, the trade association executive director, said the PUC’s decision to use the 765 kV lines rather than lower-capacity lines means less environmental damage because they can move more electricity through fewer lines. Using lower voltage wires would have required building as many as four additional corridors to create the same capacity, Boms said.

“The choice here is not between building nothing and building 765 [kilovolt lines],” he said. “It’s between building efficient, back bone lines, or a patchwork of much smaller lines that take up more land.”

Jewell, the energy attorney, said he would not be surprised to see more disputes over the placement of those lines.

“Every one of them impacts Texans personally, and the (PUC) commissioners really have to wrestle with making a decision, on the routing of it, who is going to be adversely impacted and who is not,” Jewell said. “But if we want to use electricity, if we want to have electricity, this is what we have to do.”

Disclosure: Oncor has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.