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.

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.

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.”

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.”

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