Navajo Nation: Push to electrify more homes on vast reservation

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is part of a series of articles about how tribes and Indigenous communities are managing and combating climate change.

HALCHITA, Utah (AP) — After waiting five years, Lorraine Black and Ricky Gillis heard the rumble of an electrical crew reaching their home on the vast Navajo Nation.

In five days, their home will be connected to the grid, replacing their dependence on a few solar panels and propane lanterns. The CPAP machine Gillis uses to treat sleep apnea, or his home heart monitor that relays information to doctors 400 miles away, will no longer face interruptions due to power outages. It also means Black and Gillis can now use multiple appliances, such as the refrigerator, TV and evaporative cooler, at the same time.

“We are one of the luckiest people to have electricity,” Gillis said.

Many Navajo families still live without running water or electricity, the result of historical neglect and struggles to provide services to remote homes on the 27,000-square-mile (70,000-square-kilometer) Indian reservation located in parts of Arizona. , New Mexico and Utah. Some rely on solar panels or generators, which can run erratically, while others have no electricity at all.

Gillies and Black applied to connect their home back in 2019. But when the coronavirus pandemic began to devastate the tribe and shut down all but basic services on the reservation, it further stalled the process.

Their wait underscores the ongoing challenges to electrifying every Navajo home, even with recent infusions of federal money for tribal infrastructure and services, and as extreme heat in the Southwest, exacerbated by climate change, adds to the urgency.

“We are a part of America that feels left out most of the time,” said Vircinthia Charlie, regional manager for the Navajo Nation Public Utilities Authority, a nonprofit utility company that provides electricity, water, wastewater and natural gas. and solar energy services.

For years, the Navajo Nation Utilities Authority has worked to get more Navajo homes online as quickly as possible. Under a program called Light Up Navajo, which uses a combination of private and government funding, third-party utilities from across the U.S. send electrical crews to help connect homes and extend power lines.

But installing electricity on a reservation roughly the size of West Virginia is time-consuming and costly because of its rugged geography and the vast distances between homes. Drilling into power poles can take several hours due to underground rock deposits, and some homes near Monument Valley must run power lines underground to comply with strict development regulations in the area.

About 32% of Navajo homes still lack electricity. Connecting the remaining 10,400 homes on the reservation would cost $416 million, said Dinise Becenti, government and public affairs manager for the utility.

Light Up Navajo has connected 170 more families to power this year. Since the program launched in 2019, 882 Navajo families have electrified their homes. If the program continues to be funded, it could take another 26 years to connect every home on the reservation, Becenti said.

Those who connect reap immediate benefits.

Until this month, Black and Gillis’ solar panels, which the utility installed several years ago, lasted about two to three days before their battery died in cloudy weather. It will take another two days to recharge.

“On a cloudy day you had to keep a close eye on your power consumption and everything you’re using,” Gillies said.

A crew of Colorado volunteers then helped install 14 power poles while tribal utility officials drilled six-foot-deep holes in which the poles would sit. The team then ran the wire about a mile down a red sand road from the main power line to the couple’s home.

“The lights are brighter,” Black noted after her home was connected.

In recent years, significantly more federal money has been allocated to tribes to improve infrastructure on reservations, including $32 billion through the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, of which the Navajo Nation received $112 million for electrical hookups. The Navajo Nation utility also received $17 million as part of the Biden administration’s climate legislation, known as the Inflation Reduction Act, to connect families to the grid. But the effect of this money on the ground may be delayed due to bureaucracy and logistics.

Next spring, the tribe’s utility department hopes to connect 150 more homes, including Priscilla and Leo Dan’s home.

For the couple, having electricity in their home near the Navajo Mountains in Arizona would end a nearly 12-year wait. They currently live in a recreational vehicle elsewhere, closer to their jobs, but have been working on their home on the reservation for many years. With power there, they could spend more time where Priscilla grew up and where her father still lives.

“It would make life easier,” Priscilla said. “Because otherwise everything seems to take twice as long.”

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— JOSHUA A. BICKEL and SUMAN NAISHADHAM Associated Press Naishadham reported from Washington.