Tohatchi, New Mexico
CNN
–
Katherine Benally sat between two open windows in her small house and looked out across a sun-baked field in the foothills of Chuska Mountain in the vast Navajo Nation.
As she waited for the refreshing breeze, the 74-year-old remembered fondly the days when her family grew pumpkins, corn and squash on the property. They sought shade under its trees and had no need for electricity or other modern conveniences.
“The weather,” she said, “wasn’t so hot.”
But that all changed: The Navajo Nation last year declared an extreme heat emergency after temperatures reached well over 110 degrees in parts of the region. And the heat just keeps on coming.
These days, Benali barely steps out of her house. What she wants is to get outside more often and then go back to the cold kiss of air conditioning.
“That would be perfect,” she said with a smile.
But Benally — like 13,000 households in roughly one-third of Navajo Nation households — is still off the grid. Like many here, it uses solar panels to power the essentials, such as a small fridge and a few lamps. But the power doesn’t last all day.
Now, as global temperatures continue to rise, the rush to fully electrify one of the poorest regions in the United States is more urgent than ever.
To that end, several power poles were placed this month on Benally’s land, waiting to be installed so it can be connected to the electricity grid for the first time. Thanks to a nonprofit initiative called Light Up Navajo, 46 utility companies from 16 states are partnering this year with the Navajo Nation’s utility authority to build tens of miles of power lines under the same type of mutual aid pacts that help restore power. electric after nature. disasters.
No easy task in an area known for its rugged terrain and dry climate. But it is increasingly critical to the health and safety of a community that traces its roots to the American Southwest at least 800 years ago.
“It’s crazy that this is still happening in America,” said Bryan English, a crew leader with Trico Electric Cooperative in Arizona, who is working on the project for his second year in a row.
Bounding a house a mile from Benally’s, the Englishman wiped the sweat from his brow:
“I don’t think any part of America should be without electricity in 2024.”
Business and political factors present obstacles
About the size of West Virginia, the Navajo Nation has long been rich in energy resources and manufacturing. But while private companies tapped those resources in the 20th century to help electrify areas around the Southwest, the Navajo Nation reaped few benefits.
“It’s a pretty unique rural situation,” said Dave Lock with the Grand Canyon State Electric Cooperative Association. “A hundred years ago, when the rural electrification effort came into focus, many rural areas around the country were like the Navajo Nation: it was not profitable for for-profit companies to go out and bring power to them because of the long lead times. distance.”
That changed under President Franklin Roosevelt’s administration in the 1930s, when farmers banded together to form rural cooperatives to power remote parts of the country, using federal loans under the Rural Electrification Act. But many Native American nations at the time were still trying to assimilate and lagged behind in electrification efforts, according to a 2023 US Department of Energy report to Congress.
The nonprofit Navajo Tribal Services Authority began in 1959 to help remedy the problem, but a host of complex political and geographic obstacles have made it more difficult to get the nation fully online. Among the setbacks, the federal government imposed a 40-year development freeze — known as the Bennett Freeze — on roughly 1.5 million acres of Navajo land to settle a dispute between the Navajo Nation and the Hopi tribe. The ban, lifted in 2009, stopped the installation of electricity and other key infrastructure.
The slow and steady decline to connect households to the grid is expensive. Today, it costs the Navajo Nation $40,000 per family, largely because of the remote land and wilderness. It’s a massive financial challenge in an area where the median annual household income is just over $30,000, less than half the national average.
Without the help of projects like Light Up Navajo, it could cost nearly $1 billion to extend electricity to all 13,000 households, tribal utility officials estimate. That astronomical sum — including hundreds of millions of dollars for transmission lines, electrical substations and home wiring — is a big reason other co-ops have decided to help, their representatives said.
In 2019, the Navajo Tribal Services Authority partnered with the American Public Power Association, a nonprofit industry lobbying group, to create Light Up Navajo, which has so far connected almost 850 families. But even with the help of utilities across the country and groups like the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, another trade group, it could take another three decades to run power to every household.
The partnership relies on a mix of private and federal funding. Workers come out for a 13-week stretch each spring and summer to install the connections, while the tribal utility authority works year-round to get the homes shovel-ready.
The task is “pretty much done,” said Deenise Becenti, the tribal public services authority’s manager of government and public affairs. But when companies offer manpower and volunteer services, it makes the overall mission feel achievable.
“If it wasn’t for Light Up Navajo,” she said, “some of the families that have already received electricity would still be on the waiting list for years to come.”
Using cars to charge phones and feel fresh air
Living without connected electricity has been a way of life for so many on the Navajo Nation. But as the climate changes and technology advances, more families are signing up to get on the Light Up Navajo waiting list.
Off the grid, residents use their vehicles to charge cellphones or get a brief taste of air conditioning. A young family in Crystal, New Mexico, with a 2-year-old and a baby on the way picks up fresh produce and meat daily from a store 45 minutes away, then cooks dinner over a campfire before the sun goes down, they said. . . They don’t have a working refrigerator.
Many families use camping-style coolers to store food, but they need constant supplies of ice, which melts quickly.
Thirty miles south, Arlene Henry, 56, lives in a small compound with her sisters, children and grandchildren. She planted a tree, hoping to land at least a patch of shade on their property, but insects thwarted its potential.
“We’re looking for shade all the time,” Henry said. Her family sits outside in the afternoons and seeks relief in the shade of her house, moving seats around the house to hide from the wandering sun. “We sometimes bring ice, but it just melts right there.”
The solar panels power the family’s refrigerator, two lamps and the flashlight they use to get home at night. More than anything, Henry worries about her grown son, who relies on supplemental oxygen and has trouble keeping the tank on full time, she said.
In the 90-degree heat, she recently watched her 2-year-old granddaughter ride a red tricycle. The little girl enjoyed an ice show. But after a few minutes, Henry urged him back into the shadows.
“Come here, baby, come here,” she said. “It’s very hot in there.”
Henry collected some framed photos of her parents and grandparents who grew up on this land and passed them down to her and her sisters. But now, the lack of electricity scares her – even though she also doesn’t want to leave this place that means so much.
“I thought it was normal,” she said of growing up without electricity. “But now it’s coming to me.”
A single light bulb – and a face – light up
So far this summer, Light Up Navajo has connected 125 homes with 38 miles of power lines built and a goal of connecting another 25 homes by the end of July, when the rainy season begins.
William Lee Tom Jr., 56, took advantage of one of those new connections this summer. He has lived for the past 15 years without electricity near Window Rock, Arizona, and didn’t want to leave because he can afford the house and it’s close to his family.
Before the power connection, Tom and his son often slept outside in his truck or in a wooden tent-like structure when it got too hot. Once, while at work, his son had to go to the hospital due to dehydration, Tom said.
“A lot of times, it’s just unbearable,” he said.
Power line workers with Light Up Navajo recently installed poles on Tom’s property, and on June 13, they connected the final wires to electrify his home. The crew wore long-sleeved work shirts and white hard hats, with cloth hoods draped over the back to protect their necks from the scorching sun.
After a lineman turned some switches in a new breaker box, Tom went inside and turned on his only light bulb—one he’d just bought and installed an hour earlier.
The dark room now had light, but it was the normally reserved mechanic’s face that lit up even more. Surprised that it actually worked, Tom let out a triumphant “Alriiiiight!”
He paused to look around the room, joking that he could now see its messy contents.
“Wow, that’s nice,” added Tom. “I’ve seen electricity before, but not on my property.”
Now, he is looking forward to installing an air conditioning unit.