More than 200 landowners attended a meeting in Harper on Thursday to discuss proposed transmission lines that could affect Kerr, Gillespie, Kendall and other area counties.

These counties may soon play a part in transmitting wind energy from West Texas and the Panhandle to other parts of the state.

The Lower Colorado River Authority, the primary supplier of electricity for Kerr County residents, is among a group of Texas transmission providers that filed a proposal last Friday with the Public Utility Commission of Texas to construct the line.

The proposed transmission lines will be part of the state's Competitive Renewable Energy Zone process.

A PUC route known as Scenario 2, which was approved in July, has transmission lines running from McCamey in Schleicher County to a substation in Comfort. The lines will touch the northeastern corners of Kerr County and run between Tierra Linda and Kerrville near Interstate 10.

The route then has the lines going through Gillespie, Llano and into Lampasses counties.

The lines are expected to be in operation in the next four to five years at a cost of about $4.9 billion. They will transmit a total of 18,456 megawatts of wind power to metropolitan areas of the state.

The project began in 2005 when the Texas legislature passed a bill directing the PUC to select the most productive wind zones in the state and devise a transmission plan to move power generated from these zones to various populated areas in the state.

The Electrical Reliability Council of Texas, the agency which oversees the state's electric grid, did a study and picked five "competitive renewable energy zones" in West Texas and the Panhandle.

LCRA jointly filed its proposal with Electric Transmission Texas LLC, Oncor Electric Delivery, Sharyland Utilities, South Texas Electric Cooperative and Texas-New Mexico Power Company.

Additional line

According to Robert Weatherford, president of Save Our Scenic Hill Country Environment Inc., another transmission line might be in the works.

A survey done at Thursday night's meeting in Harper revealed that nearly half of the more than 200 who attended opposed the line.

"There now is a company that is approaching landowners in Gillespie and Kerr counties about the possibility of a line that appears to be an additional line," Weatherford said. "There are a lot of landowners who are concerned about it."

Weatherford said the company is known as Hilliard Energy Inc. and is out of Midland. He said they appear to be working for FPL Energy and its project has nothing to do with the wind energy project.

Property rights experts spoke at the meeting and suggested that landowners employ a lawyer to negotiate with the energy company before agreeing to a contract.

They explained that easements should be very limited and detailed, outlining the contractors obligations and rights, as well as those of the landowners.