On Navajo Nation, a push to electrify more homes on the vast reservation

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: AP

Updated 6:34 PM EDT, October 27, 2024

HALCHITA, Utah (AP) — After a five-year wait, Lorraine Black and Ricky Gillis heard the rumblings of an electrical crew reach their home on the sprawling Navajo Nation.

In five days’ time, their home would be connected to the power grid, replacing their reliance on a few solar panels and propane lanterns. No longer would the CPAP machine Gillis uses for sleep apnea or his home heart monitor transmitting information to doctors 400 miles away face interruptions due to intermittent power. It also means Black and Gillis can now use more than a few appliances — such as a fridge, a TV, and an evaporative cooling unit — at the same time. “We’re one of the luckiest people who get to get electric,” Gillis said.

Many Navajo families still live without running water and electricity, a product of historic neglect and the struggle to get services to far-flung homes on the 27,000-square-mile (70,000-square-kilometer) Native American reservation that lies in parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. Some rely on solar panels or generators, which can be patchy, and others have no electricity whatsoever.

Gillis and Black filed an application to connect their home back in 2019. But when the coronavirus pandemic started ravaging the tribe and everything besides essential services was shut down on the reservation, it further stalled the process. Their wait highlights the persistent challenges in electrifying every Navajo home, even with recent injections of federal money for tribal infrastructure and services and as extreme heat in the Southwest intensified by climate change adds to the urgency.


Read more: https://apnews.com/article/navajo-nation-electricity-tribal-lands-reservation-infrastructure-poverty-76f4515d3211a31cdff503c6082e3590

[electric_blue68]

1. There are some Traditionalists who might still reject it, but everyone else will probably be happy

It is an amazing desert landscape! Was there in '79.

[2naSalit]

2. Back in 1976...

I remember hauling a flatbed load of water pipe in to Fort Defiance in the southern part of the rez. It was like a third world country in the middle of the village. I got a lot of looks, back then a woman with a semi was quite unusual and I look like I could be NA so it was interesting to say the least. Never forgot that run, brought the pipe down from Denver.

The landscape is almost otherworldly but hauntingly beautiful. Wind and solar set ups would probably do well there.

[Hotler]

3. Maybe President Biden could use his executive power and stroke of the pen to send effort and resources to power up

the res with the same urgency as hurricane disasters. I glanced at the pictures in the article and I saw two trucks and three guys. Can you imagine the howling if FEMA sent two trucks and three guys down South.

[IbogaProject]

8. The funding has to be approved by Congress and the Senate

So there are limits to executive orders.

[Bayard]

4. But electricity and running water are not considered, "essential services."

Try that with the rest of the U.S.

[BonnieJW]

5. I can remember many years ago

several NA reservations had ran there own casinos. I remember wondering at the time why they didn't use the money for running water and electricity. Never got an answer.

Does anyone know what happened?

[LauraInLA]

6. I'd guess the Four Corners area is remote enough that casinos aren't a huge money-maker there.

[Wonder Why]

7. The casinos bring jobs along with taking money from suckers and there are few jobs on the reservations.

The jobs bring money to afford the electricity and water.

[hunter]

9. My wife and I lived for a time on a reservation, before cell phones.

There were only two public pay phones in the area. You had to wait in line to use those phones, almost any time day or night. For most people there was little or no hope of ever getting a private line. If you wanted to have a long distance phone conversation with someone best do it in the wee hours of the morning.

There was a laundromat in town but it shut down whenever the water tank got close to empty, which was a few random days a week. We didn't have a washing machine or dryer. The next nearest laundromat was seventy miles away.

That all changed for the better after the casino was built. We visited years later and the place had a reliable water supply and good cell phone service.

I compare this to my great grandmother's ranch, which is still about as far away from civilization as you can possibly get in the 48 states. The ranch got both electric and telephone service in FDR's New Deal, possibly because they were White and not Native Americans.