About › How we check our data
How we check our data
Everything on Parcel & Grid comes from public records and published sources, and every fact links to where it came from, so you can check it yourself. Before a reference page goes live, a second, independent pass reloads each cited document and drops any statement it cannot confirm; where the site has placed something itself, the page says so.
Where the facts come from
- Land reports query public agency map services live, at the moment you click: FEMA flood maps (the effective map, the preliminary map and FEMA's Base Level Engineering estimates), the Texas Water Development Board's flood-planning data in Texas, USGS hydrography for the nearest mapped stream, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wetlands and critical habitat, the National Park Service's National Register, USGS elevation, USDA soil surveys, the Census Bureau, the Bureau of Land Management, and the federal transmission-line map. Each fact in a report links to the agency's map and to the raw data behind it. A separate "Risks and context" block adds county-wide facts that are not checks at the spot and do not change the verdict: hail, tornado and damaging-wind report counts from NOAA's Storm Events Database (1996–2025, county level), the number and size of projects in the grid operator's queue for that county, the county's most recent sourced board action from this site's county pages, and the cited time a grid connection takes. Those county tables are rebuilt with the monthly data update.
- Texas parcels come from county appraisal-district records compiled by the Texas Geographic Information Office. We show acreage, legal descriptions, parcel IDs, and how many nearby parcels share the same owner record; owner names, mailing addresses, and values are removed on our server.
- Parcels in other states come from each state's own statewide parcel layer where the GIS office publishes one without a key: Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Utah, Virginia, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, West Virginia. We show acreage from the record where the state publishes it, acreage measured from the mapped outline, the parcel number, and the legal description where published; owner names, mailing addresses, and values are removed on our server. Where the state publishes no acreage field (Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Indiana, Maine, North Dakota, New Hampshire, Utah, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia), only the measured figure is shown. Coverage caveats: Idaho's layer covers the counties that have opted in; New York's covers the counties that allow public release of their parcel data (38 at the May 2026 publication); New Jersey and Indiana ask for attribution, given on the sources page; Massachusetts records lot size in square feet or acres by town. California, Alaska and Nebraska are left out because their statewide layers carry license terms we have not confirmed allow this use, and twenty states (Illinois and Arizona among them) have no statewide layer. Vintage differs by state and is shown in the report.
- Proposed energy projects in Texas come from ERCOT's monthly Generator Interconnection Status report and battery storage report; ERCOT notes the report is built from developer-entered data for planning purposes and may contain errors. Illinois county pages use the MISO and PJM public interconnection queues; Arizona county pages use the U.S. Energy Information Administration's monthly generator inventory (Form EIA-860M). Each page names its report and month. Stages on the county and market pages: "Approved for synchronization" and "Approved for energization" are ERCOT's own milestones; "Signed", "Security posted" and "In study" read ERCOT's agreement, security and study columns; "Under construction" is this site's derived stage (security and notice to proceed posted and the developer's reported construction start date on or before the report month end), not an ERCOT milestone. ERCOT's finer study-phase strings (for example "SS Completed, FIS Started") are collapsed into "In study". A request whose ERCOT name marks it as a repower, uprate, upgrade or fuel change, or that reports 0 MW and is not a battery, is counted as a change to an existing plant, listed in the table but not in the proposed-project count. The data date is the ERCOT report month, not the day the page was built.
- Contacts for each Texas county come from official directories: the Texas Comptroller's county directory and the TCEQ region directory.
- Permits for this spot (a section of the Texas land report) combines the report's own findings with county records: the TCEQ region office from TCEQ's directory; whether the county government takes part in the National Flood Insurance Program, from FEMA's Community Status Book (OpenFEMA); the TxDOT district, Corps of Engineers regulatory district and groundwater conservation districts, by intersecting the agencies' own published boundary layers with the county. A county's status is the unincorporated area's; cities set their own rules. Where a record is missing the line says Unknown rather than guessing. The section lists offices and triggers; it is not a permit determination.
- Crowded connection points (county pages and the Brief) match requests on the PSS/E bus number written in ERCOT's POI column (build/poi.py), not on the exact wording: "60404 SOLSTICE 345 kV", "AEP Solstice Substation #60404" and "Tap 345kV 60404 Solstice to 38441 Bottlebrush" all count toward bus 60404, and a tap line counts toward both of its ends. Bus names are the most common wording across every request that cites the bus, so some read as PSS/E codes (RILEY7A). A request with no bus number in its POI column is matched on its exact string, as before. Sharing a bus is not a determination that requests share an ERCOT study group or upgrade cost; ERCOT assigns those.
- Who to contact for this spot (under Permits for this spot) gives the office phone and office mailbox behind each permit: the county judge's office and county clerk from the Office of Court Administration's judicial directory; the appraisal district and tax office from the Comptroller's county directory; TxDOT district offices from TxDOT's district pages; Corps of Engineers regulatory offices from each district's Regulatory page; groundwater districts from TCEQ's district contact list. Only office numbers and the office's general mailbox are carried: a directory address that names a person is left out, and no names appear; each entry shows the date the directories were read. Offices change numbers, so confirm before filing.
- Permit packet (a button under Permits for this spot) writes one PDF in the browser from the report's findings and the applicant's typed details. Where the agency publishes its form as a PDF, the packet fills the agency's own pages: ENG Form 4345 (Oct 2024 edition) and the TCEQ Large Construction Site Notice (TCEQ-20961), fetched from the agency or an official government mirror by a monthly job that records each edition and flags a re-issued form. Filings that exist only as online portals (TCEQ's NOI in STEERS, FAA 7460-1, USFWS IPaC, THC eTRAC, the ERCOT request) and county or district forms (floodplain, TxDOT access) come back as worksheets with the same numbered items. Every entry is tagged with its origin (report, applicant, or still to fill in); the packet prepares the filing, it is not the filing.
- State permit quick-find pages (/permits/<state>/) list, for each state and D.C., the official page for nine approvals (state siting, grid interconnection, construction stormwater, historic preservation, wildlife review, DOT access, state NFIP coordinator, water and wells, property-tax incentives) plus the federal portals. Each link was found on the agency's own domain by web search and is loaded by a script that records the HTTP status, final address and page title with the date; a link the check could not confirm is marked: sites that refuse automated checks are linked as researched and labelled; where the exact page fails but the agency's site answers, the entry links the agency's site and says which page to look for; otherwise the entry has no link. Programs change each legislative session, so the agency page governs.
- Guides cite the statutes, agencies, Texas A&M AgriLife, appraisal districts, and law firms they rely on, linked beside each claim. Where sources disagree or are out of date, the guide says so.
How often it is updated
- Land reports: live, every time you check a spot. The "Re-check now" button reruns the same checks later.
- ERCOT project data: monthly, when ERCOT posts its reports. Each monthly update is kept at /updates/. MISO, PJM and EIA data: refreshed when those pages are rebuilt; the date is on each page.
- County contacts: checked against the official directories, with the check date shown on each page.
- Guides: reviewed when laws change, including after each Texas legislative session. Each guide shows the date it was last updated.
What we never do
- Invent figures. Any example calculation is labeled as an illustration.
- Guess at contacts. If an office does not publish a number, we say so rather than fill it in.
- Accept payment to include, rank, or describe a project, developer, or company.
- Give legal, tax, engineering, or financial advice. Everything here is general information; talk to a qualified professional before you sign or file.
Advertising
Google AdSense advertising is currently disabled while the site is under review. If enabled later, ad code will be limited to indexable content pages with an explicit ad placement; it will not load on the land check, the map, or pages marked noindex. Advertisers have no say over what we publish. See the Privacy Policy for how advertising cookies would work and your choices.
Found an error?
Please tell us through the About and contact page, with the page and what you found. We check the source and correct confirmed errors promptly.