Navajo Nation Electrification

Managing Editor Lori Burkhart wrote in August’s Public Utilities Fortnightly about #LIGHTUPNAVAJO:

Sometimes a story just draws you in. It helps to have an eloquent and dedicated speaker telling that story. Such is the case with Wally Haase, general manager, Navajo Tribal Utility Authority, who spoke at the American Public Power Association’s National Conference on June 19, 2018, on the over fifteen thousand families or sixty thousand people living within the Navajo nation without access to electricity.

Let that sink in. Because as he tells it, and you easily can figure out, if you don't have access to electricity, then you don't have access to running water. Or many of what we would call the necessities of life.

Haase explains that means the families must take a two hundred and fifty-gallon plastic tank, hoist it on the back of a pick-up truck or trailer, then drive for an hour to an hour and a half to one of the watering points and fill it up.

Without electricity, you don't have refrigeration. According to Haase, when families go to the watering point, and the water will last about four or five days, depending on how conservative a family is, that’s also where to buy groceries and ice to preserve the perishables at an adjacent convenience store. That’s basically a gas station that sells food next to it. The families bring the food and water home and the cycle begins again…

Realizing that more must be done, and faster, Haase now is working on a volunteer program that is being introduced in September 2018. Using the hashtag #LIGHTUPNAVAJO, also called “Light Up the Navajo Nation,” you can register online to take part in efforts by the APPA and NTUA in a pilot program to bring electricity to homes without it.

The goal is that this will serve as a successful model for continued efforts to turn on the lights for all Navajo homes that hope to connect to the grid. Volunteers will be working with NTUA crews to help build electric lines to serve homes for the first time.

The effort needs teams of experienced line-workers who are committed to helping give power to those in need. Many of the electrification projects are spread out, and resources can be limited, so volunteers are asked to commit to at least two weeks of volunteer linework.

On Sept. 10 and 11, 2018, NTUA will host a planning meeting on the Navajo Nation in Window Rock, Arizona, following its Engineering and Operations Technical Conference planning meeting. This meeting is intended to provide volunteers and interested utilities with more information about the projects, required resources, weather conditions, travel plans, and more.

Haase asked me to let you know that matching funds are available to help encourage volunteers and alleviate the financial burden.

For more information on how you can help Light Up the Navajo Nation, simply go to www.publicpower.org/lightupnavajo for the registration form. Even if you don’t have the required skills for installing power lines, there is more you can do.

You can spread the word about this powerful project. When you follow that link, you will find a flyer you can post with valuable information plus a quick one-page summary to help you communicate key points about the effort to your colleagues and leadership.

 

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Steve Mitnick, Editor-in-Chief, Public Utilities Fortnightly, and President, Lines Up, Inc.