The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) on March 30 filed with the Public Utility Commission of Texas recommendations concerning Oncor Electric Delivery Company’s Kyle Ranch to Quarry Field 138-kV Transmission Line Project, including having a permitted biologist on site during construction activities.
As noted in the filing, the new single-circuit, 138-kV line would be built on double-circuit-capable structures between the newly built Kyle Ranch substation and the newly built Quarry Field switch station, both of which are located in Loving County, Texas.
The project was previously approved in a separate commission proceeding (Docket No. 49302), including the relocation of the Kyle Ranch substation about three miles east of its originally proposed location. However, the TPWD added, the single route for the proposed line presented now results from numerous conversations with directly affected landowners, all of whom have consented to a series of route modifications from the settlement route aprpoved in Docket No. 49302. The proposed line route would be about 11.3 miles long.
The TPWD added that the Kyle Ranch substation is located in Loving County about six miles southeast of the intersection of County Road (CR) 300 and Farm-to-Market (FM) 652, while the Quarry Field switch is located about six miles north of the community of Mentone, Texas, also in Loving County.
Discussing state-listed species, the filing noted that despite declines in east and central Texas, the Texas horned lizard is still common in portions of the Rio Grande Plains of south Texas, the Rolling and High Plains of northwest Texas, and the Trans Pecos of far west Texas; it remains possible that the Texas horned lizard could occur in the study area.
