6 Employer Best Practices for Effective Landowner Engagement

Transmission line construction is one of the most complex and politically sensitive infrastructure endeavors in the United States. Crews routinely work across dozens and sometimes hundreds of distinct land parcels, navigating a patchwork of easement rights, property histories and landowner temperaments. What happens when that navigation breaks down isn’t always a polite conversation at the fence line.

In one documented incident in the Upper Midwest, a 12-member utility project team conducting a formal, scheduled right-of-way walkdown was confronted by a landowner wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying a rifle. Police were called and ultimately resolved the standoff, clarifying that the crew was accessing utility property. This encounter was prompted by a pipeline contractor who had worked in the same corridor the year before; their employees did not use access mats, tore up the property and left it unrestored. In essence, the new project team paid the price for the previous team’s errors.

In a second incident that also occurred in the Upper Midwest, a utility project manager directed a site access contractor to cross a private landowner’s property to reach a transmission line right-of-way. The project manager believed that landowner engagement had occurred and access had been arranged. This was not the case. The contractor’s vehicles were stopped mid-property by the landowner, who refused to let them move, effectively ceasing work until police intervened.

No Anomalies Here
These incidents are not anomalies. Across the country, utility field crews regularly encounter unhappy landowners, some of whom are carrying weapons. Earlier this year, two Los Angeles Department of Water and Power field employees were threatened at gunpoint by a customer while attempting to perform a scheduled water shutoff (see https://ladwpnews.com/ladwp-urges-customers-to-treat-utility-workers-with-respect-and-kindness-as-they-perform-essential-functions/). In an older case, a Pennsylvania business owner drew a pistol on contractors working in a right-of-way, ordering them off the property despite having signed an access agreement with the contracting firm; he was charged with several crimes, including aggravated assault and terroristic threats (see www.cbsnews.com/pittsburgh/news/new-castle-business-owner-accused-of-pulling-gun-on-sewer-workers/).

No single federal database tracks landowner-versus-utility-worker confrontations as a discrete category, but the broader data is sobering. From 2015 to 2019, for instance, the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics reported an annual average of 1.3 million nonfatal workplace violent victimizations (see https://bjs.ojp.gov/press-release/federal-agencies-release-joint-study-workplace-violence). Industry employers must understand that (1) field employees face elevated harm risk when working in remote or isolated locations on or near private property and (2) poor communication with landowners plays a significant role in triggering these encounters.

Failure Modes
The incidents described above illustrate the two most common failure modes with respect to landowner engagement: inherited distrust, such as when a previous contractor’s poor conduct poisons landowner perceptions, and assumed engagement (e.g., a project manager erroneously believes communication has occurred, an assumption that travels down the chain of command until it hits a locked gate).

Boundary confusion is a less dramatic but equally disruptive third failure mode. Some landowners do not fully grasp the distinction between their property and a utility’s right-of-way, even if they have lived alongside an easement for decades. Failing to proactively clarify this distinction with the landowner is a recipe for confrontation.

Best Practices
Given the significant issues that can arise in lieu of effective landowner engagement, utility organizations that haven’t already would be wise to develop an engagement program that incorporates these six best practices.

1. Engage early and in person. Written notices satisfy legal requirements, but they may not satisfy or even reach landowners. A phone call or doorstep conversation before work begins is the best way to reduce the likelihood of misunderstandings. Explain who will be on-site, the equipment that will be used, how long the work will take and how the property will be restored. Landowners who understand project details are far less likely to interpret crew vehicles on the right-of-way as trespassing.

2. Document everything. The standoff in the second incident above began because a project manager believed landowner engagement had occurred. For any project that involves access across or near private land, engagement should be documented in writing with the same rigor as permitting. Include the name of the person who was contacted, the date, the information communicated and what was agreed to. This should be done before any crew members enter the field.

3. Acknowledge and address prior contractor damage. If a corridor has seen previous utility or pipeline activity, especially activity that left property in poor condition, the current project team should proactively acknowledge that history. Arriving on-site with a clear commitment to land protection, including use of access mats to prevent rutting and compaction, signals that this project will be different.

4. Plainly clarify rights and boundaries. Landowners do not always know where their property ends and the utility’s property begins. Any engagement conversation should include a plain-language explanation of the right-of-way: what it is, what rights the utility holds within it and what that means for the landowner’s day-to-day access. This basic transparency helps to prevent misunderstandings that could escalate into confrontation.

5. Commit to restoration and follow through. Landowners burned by prior contractors will be watching your workers. The fastest way to rebuild trust is to leave property in better condition than you found it. Specific commitments regarding restoration timelines, soil stabilization and any damage remediation should be part of every landowner engagement conversation. Critically, these commitments must be tracked and met.

6. Assign a single point of contact. Landowners who have questions or concerns during active construction need to know who to call. An employer that appoints a dedicated landowner liaison – with a real phone number and authority to respond – greatly reduces the likelihood of a frustrated property owner showing up at a jobsite to resolve things themselves.

Conclusion
The transmission buildout underway across the U.S. is historic in scale, with Midcontinent Independent System Operator Inc. (MISO) alone approving more than 5,000 miles of new transmission corridors in December 2024 (see www.publicpower.org/periodical/article/miso-board-approves-historic-transmission-plan-strengthen-grid-reliability). Thousands of landowner interactions are still to come. Employers must recognize that the time, legal exposure and reputational damage from a single armed standoff or police intervention could vastly exceed the cost of a robust landowner engagement program.

Even more importantly, effective engagement helps to ensure utility crews can move through corridors freely and safely. Our industry’s workers deserve better than to inherit risk that a simple phone call could have prevented.

About the Author: Levi Frost is vice president of construction services for Sterling Solutions (https://sterlingsolutions.com), a manufacturer and installer of site access mats.