HALCHITA, Utah — After a five-year wait, Lorraine Black and Ricky Gillis heard the rumbles of a crew of electricians reaching their home in the vast Navajo Nation.

In five days, their home would be connected to the electrical grid, replacing their reliance on a few solar panels and propane lanterns. The CPAP machine Gillis uses to treat sleep apnea or his home heart monitor transmitting information to doctors 400 miles away would no longer face interruptions from intermittent power. It also means that Black and Gillis can now use multiple appliances, like a refrigerator, television and evaporative cooling unit, at the same time.

“We are one of the luckiest people to have the opportunity to go electric,” Gillis said.

Many Navajo families still live without running water or electricity, the result of historic neglect and the struggle to get service in remote homes on the 27,000 square mile (70,000 square kilometer) Native American reservation that stretches into parts of Arizona. , New Mexico and Utah. Some rely on solar panels or generators, which can be spotty, and others have no electricity at all.

Gillis and Black filed an application to connect their home in 2019. But when the coronavirus pandemic began ravaging the tribe and everything but essential services was shut down on the reservation, it further stalled the process .

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

______

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is part of a series on how tribes and indigenous communities are facing and combating climate change.

______

“We’re a part of America that, a lot of the time, feels a little left out,” said Vircynthia Charley, district director of the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority, a nonprofit utility that provides electricity. electricity, water, wastewater and natural gas. and solar energy services.

For years, the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority has worked to connect more Navajo homes to the grid more quickly. Under a program called Light Up Navajo, which uses a mix of private and public funding, outside utilities from across the United States send teams of electricians to help connect homes and extend power lines .

But installing electricity on a reservation the size of West Virginia is time-consuming and expensive because of its rugged geography and large distances between homes. Drilling for power poles can take several hours due to underground rock deposits, while some homes near Monument Valley must have power lines installed underground to meet strict development regulations in the area.

About 32 percent of Navajo homes still don’t have electricity. Connecting the reservation’s remaining 10,400 homes would cost $416 million, said Deenise Becenti, the utility’s government and public affairs manager.

This year, Light Up Navajo connected 170 additional families to the network. Since the program launched in 2019, 882 Navajo families have had their homes electrified. If the program remains funded, Becenti said it would take another 26 years to connect every home on the reservation.

Those who log in immediately reap the benefits.

Until this month, the Black and Gillis solar panels that the utility installed a few years ago lasted about two to three days before their batteries died on cloudy days. It would take another two days to recharge.

“You really had to watch the watts and everything you were using on a cloudy day,” Gillis said.

Then, a volunteer team from Colorado helped install 14 utility poles while tribal utility authorities drilled six-foot-deep holes in which the poles would be placed. The team then ran a cable about a mile down a red sand road from the main power line to the couple’s home.

“The lights are brighter,” Black remarked after his house was connected.

In recent years, significantly more federal money has been allocated to tribes to improve infrastructure on reservations, including $32 billion from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 – of which the Navajo Nation received $112 million for electrical connections. The Navajo tribal utility also received $17 million as part of the Biden administration’s climate law, known as the Inflation Reduction Act, to connect families to the power grid. But it can take time to see the effects of this money on the ground due to bureaucracy and logistics.

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

For the couple, having grid power at their home near Navajo Mountain, Arizona, would end a nearly 12-year wait. They currently live in an RV elsewhere, closer to work, but have been working on their home on the reservation for 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 to do.”

___

Naishadham reported from Washington.