One could argue that Mason County and its citizens have done a better job protecting their history and traditions, as well as the natural beauty of their hills and vistas, than almost any other county in the Texas Hill Country. But Mason County citizens and landowners are facing a new challenge.
The Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) recently announced that its Transmission Service Corporation (LCRATSC), in conjunction with Oncor Electric Delivery Company (Oncor), intends to build a 765kV electrical transmission line across almost 200 miles of the Texas Hill Country to deliver electricity, not to the Texas Hill Country, but to current and projected industrial users in the Permian Basin.
According to the LCRA and Oncor, they are looking at three potential routes for that 765kV electrical transmission line with possible interconnections between those proposed routes. One of those routes, the southernmost, originates in Bell County and crosses Burnet and San Saba Counties before it drops into Mason County. That southernmost route then runs, east to west, across almost the entirety of north Mason County before it passes into eastern Menard county where it joins the valley of the San Saba River and runs for miles along the San Saba with three, back and forth, crossings of the River and its pristine waters. In fact, all three proposed routes burden the flash flood prone San Saba River with the central route running along and potentially crossing the San Saba River twice in McCulloch County and the northern route crossing and running along the Saba River in San Saba County.
