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Power line easements
Posted by Unknown Member on June 8, 2021 at 4:04 pmIf you look at just about any quad map (what are those?), aerial, or practically any survey related map, power line easements are usually easy to identify.
My question to those employed by such utilities is by whom, and how are these easement locations determined?
andy-bruner replied 2 years, 10 months ago 7 Members · 9 Replies- 9 Replies
Most of the time, at least around here, they acquired a blanket easement, but as usual, it depends. Transmission lines across federal land don’t necessarily involve easements but a federal permit that can be very difficult to next to impossible to track down once the land leaves federal ownership. Once they have their blanket easement, they design/build their lines and it is often left to the future landowner to get the blanket easement vacated and replaced with an easement of specific width and location. Older power line easements are by nature very vague and the utilities have something of a God complex when it comes to dealing with them on these issues. Just me .02′ ~ YMMV
WillyDepends on the type of map. Sub and PM may have a designated area assigned to public utilities if not already in public Right-of-Way.
If powerlines are built after existing mapping and fall outside of supporting easements or public ROW then most of the time the power company will try to have the facility determine the location of the easement. It will be tied to existing boundary and a centerline description with a common width to cover the area of interest will be stated in the Legal description. Determining the width can vary depending on the type of powerline, transmission or distribution? cross-arm lengths etc.
Getting in contact with your local power company Right of way department may be able to sum it up for you.
Hope all is well and this is helpful.
-Justin Thomas
- Posted by: @sd-surveys
Hope all is well and this is helpful.
Thank you and it is very helpful. I noticed that this is your second post and a welcome contribution. ????
Power providers generally keep some sort of inventory of their facilities and easements. The trick is finding that inventory. There is usually a department that can be helpful but contacting them can get frustrating.
And it’s not always satisfying once you find any records. I’ve seen scads of easements from the late ’40s that simply read something like “a 100 feet wide strip across the NW/4..”. In cases like that the courts are generally amicable to the theory that the easement exists 50 feet both sides of the existing plant.
I did a survey once for the owners of a large transmission line. The line had been built in the early ’50s and the easement had a clause that the line would not interfere with the agricultural use of the land. Well, the property owner built a large metal hay barn that was almost entirely on the easement (it was not directly underneath any conductors).
The power company tried to get him to move the barn. They eventually filed suit against him. The power company lost. One aspect of the suit hinged upon case law that prohibits the owners (dominant estate) of easements from excluding property owner (servient estate) from full use of their property. By case law rights of that nature are reserved for the holders of fee simple and not the holders of easement rights. An easement may contain exclusionary verbiage to the contrary. But with no rights being specifically addressed at the time of conveyance the power company was out-of-luck.
Power transmission easements nowadays are a lot more pages than they use to be. 😉
- Posted by: @flga-2-2
My question to those employed by such utilities is by whom, and how are these easement locations determined?
How about if the word “alignments” (through undeveloped land) was substituted for “locations” in the above captioned quote?
@flga-2-2
“Alignments” doesn’t seem to me to be specific enough to describe an easement unless supported by some other distinct verbiage. I’d be wary of any use of the word in an easement unless the easement was described specifically by distances either side of a determinable centerline.
In my mind the word ‘alignment’ is probably best reserved for construction purposes.
0.02$
Northwest Energy has them in their GIS system. I called them on one farm job I had. A fellow met me at the job site. He had a tablet that had all their power line easements on it. He lead me right to the easement and the corners it was tied to.
Agreed. In SW FL, lines or borings outside the ROW or written easements can be found by staking contractor crews which report back to FPL. In some cases the easements are revised with new construction as-built information. I see many in rural areas like Justin described with centerline of 10′ for example tied to a section corner that lead to a ROW or substation.
ROW takings and easement changes are hard to find through appraiser’s/clerks office. A good contact in the utility ROW department is helpful for that stuff.
I have had great experiences with Georgia Power in relation to their easements and rights of way. It’s been years now but all I had to do was call the Land Office, give them the Land Lot, District, and County and they would pull all the maps and deeds and make me copies of them. Saved HOURS of work digging it all up. Unfortunately I have seen too many “surveyors” just locate the edge of clearing and call that the limits of the right of way. Gives me heartburn just thinking about it.
Andy
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