Navajo Nation: As the heat increases, 13,000 families in this part of the US are living without power



Tohatchi, New Mexico
CNN
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Katherine Benally sat between two open windows in her tiny home, looking out over the sun-baked plains at the foot of the Chuska Mountains on the vast Navajo Nation.

Waiting for a cool breeze, the 74-year-old recalled the days when her family grew squash, corn and pumpkins on this land. They sought shade under its trees and did not need electricity or other modern amenities.

“The weather,” he said, “wasn’t that hot.”

But that's all changed: The Navajo Nation declared a state of emergency last year because of extreme heat, as temperatures soared above 110 degrees in parts of the region. And the heat continues to wreak havoc.

These days Benali hardly leaves the house. All she wants is to go out as much as possible and then return to the cool air of the air conditioning.

Ashley Killough/CNN

Katherine Benally rarely leaves her Navajo Nation home to escape the heat.

“That would be perfect,” he said, smiling.

But Benally — like the 13,000 families that make up about a third of the Navajo Nation — is still off the power grid. Like many people here, she uses solar panels to power essentials like a small refrigerator and a few light bulbs. But the power doesn't last all day.

Now, as global temperatures rise, the need to fully electrify one of the poorest regions of the United States is more urgent than ever.

To that end, several power poles have been laid out on Benally’s land this month, waiting to be installed so she can connect to the electric grid for the first time. Thanks to a nonprofit initiative called Light Up Navajo, 46 ​​utility companies from 16 states are partnering with the Navajo Nation’s utility authority this year to build dozens of miles of power lines under the same mutual aid agreements that help restore power after natural disasters.

That's no easy task in a region known for its rugged terrain and arid climate. But it's even more vital 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 still happens in America,” said Brian English, a crew foreman at Trico Electric Cooperative in Arizona, who is working on the project for the second year in a row.

Adding to Benally's home, located a mile away, English wiped sweat from his brow:

“I don't think there should be any part of America without electricity in 2024.”

Business and political factors create hurdles

Equal to the size of West Virginia, the Navajo Nation has long been blessed with energy sources and production. But when private companies tapped those resources to help bring power to surrounding areas of the Southwest in the 20th century, the Navajo Nation reaped little benefit.

“It's a fairly unique rural situation,” said Dave Locke of the Grand Canyon State Electric Cooperative Association. “One hundred years ago, when rural electrification efforts came into focus, many rural areas across the country were like the Navajo Nation: It wasn't profitable for for-profit utilities to go out and deliver power to them because of the long distances.”

That changed in the 1930s during President Franklin Roosevelt's administration, when farmers banded together to form rural cooperatives to bring power to remote parts of the country using federal loans under the Rural Electrification Act. But at the time, many Native American nations were still trying to assimilate and lagged behind in electrification efforts, according to a 2023 U.S. Department of Energy report to Congress.

Ashley Killough/CNN

Linemen work to install power lines to bring electricity to the Navajo Nation.

The nonprofit Navajo Tribal Utility Authority was launched in 1959 to address this problem, but political and geographic barriers have made it difficult to get the Nation fully on the grid. One of the obstacles is that the federal government imposed a 40-year development ban — known as the Bennett Freeze — on about 1.5 million acres of Navajo land to resolve a dispute between the Navajo Nation and the Hopi Tribe. This ban, lifted in 2009, prohibited the installation of electricity and other major infrastructure.

The slow, steady work of connecting homes to the power grid is expensive. Today, it costs $40,000 per household in the Navajo Nation, largely because of the remote, desert area. It's a major financial challenge in a region where the median annual household income is a little more than $30,000, less than half the national rate.

Tribal utility officials estimate that without the help of projects like Light Up Navajo, it would cost about $1 billion to bring power to all 13,000 households. That astronomical sum — which includes hundreds of millions of dollars for transmission lines, electric substations and home wiring — is a big reason other cooperatives have decided to help, their representatives said.

In 2019, the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority partnered with the American Public Power Association, a nonprofit industry lobbying group, to create Light Up Navajo, which has connected about 850 households so far. But despite help from utilities across the country and groups like the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, another trade group, it could take three more decades to bring power to every home.

This partnership relies on a mix of private and federal funding. Workers come for 13 weeks each spring and summer to install the connections, while the tribal utility authority works year-round to get the homes ready for shoveling.

Denise Becenti, government and public affairs manager for the Tribal Utility Authority, said the work is “not done” yet. But when companies volunteer manpower and services, it makes the overall mission feel within reach.

“If it weren’t for Light Up Navajo, some of the families that have already received electricity would be on a waiting list for years to come,” he said.

Using the car to charge the phone and enjoy the cool breeze

Living without electricity has been a way of life for many people on the Navajo Nation. But with climate change and advances in technology, many families are signing up to join the Light Up Navajo waiting list.

Without a grid connection, residents use their vehicles to charge cell phones or briefly experience air conditioning. A young family in Crystal, New Mexico, with a 2-year-old baby and a toddler buys fresh produce and meat every day from a store located 45 minutes away, then cooks dinner over a campfire before the sun goes down, he said. They don't have a working refrigerator.

Many families use camp-style coolers to store food, but they require a constant supply 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 to provide at least a little shade on her property, but pests thwarted that prospect.

Ashley Killough/CNN

Arlene Henry doesn't want to leave her Navajo Nation home, but her family's loss of connection to the power grid as summer temperatures soar scares her.

Ashley Killough/CNN

A red tricycle stands in the sunshine near Arlene Henry's home.

“We're looking for shade all the time,” Henry said. His family sits outside in the afternoon and seeks relief in the shade of their home, moving chairs around the house to keep out the sun. “We sometimes bring in snow, but it melts right away.”

Solar-powered panels power the family's refrigerator, two light bulbs and a flashlight they use when they go outside their home at night. More than anything, Henry said, he worries about his adult son, who relies on oxygen supplements and has trouble keeping the tank running full time.

In 90-degree heat recently, she watched her 2-year-old granddaughter ride around on a red tricycle. The little girl enjoyed an ice pop. But after a few minutes, Henry told her to come back into the shade.

“Come this way, baby, come this way,” he said. “It’s hot out there.”

Henry held on to some framed photos of her parents and grandparents who grew up on this land and passed it down to her and her sisters. But now, the lack of electricity scares her — though she also doesn't want to leave this place that holds so much significance.

“I thought it was normal. But now it's bothering me,” he said of growing up without electricity.

A bulb – and a face – lit up

So far this summer, Light Up Navajo has connected 125 homes to 38 miles of power lines and aims to connect 25 more by the end of July, when the rainy season begins.

William Lee Tom Jr., 56, benefited from one of these new connections this summer. He has lived without power near Window Rock, Arizona, for the past 15 years, and he didn't want to leave because he could afford this home and it's closer to his family.

Before electricity was hooked up, Tom and his son would often sleep outside in the truck or in a wooden tent-like structure when it was too hot. Tom said that once, while out running errands, his son had to go to the hospital because of dehydration.

“Sometimes it becomes unbearable,” he said.

Power line crews with Light Up Navajo recently installed poles on Tom's property, and on June 13, they installed the final wires to bring power to his home. The crew wore long-sleeved work shirts and white hard hats with cloth covers on the back to protect their necks from the scorching sun.

Joel De La Rosa/CNN

William Lee Tom Jr. planting a bulb in his Navajo Nation home.

After a lineman turned on some switches at the new breaker box, Tom went inside and burned out his only light bulb — one he'd purchased and installed just an hour earlier.

There was light in the dark room now, but it was the normally demure mechanic's face that glowed even more. Surprised that it actually worked, Tom let out a triumphant “Okay!”

He paused to look around the room, joking that he could now see things scattered around the room.

“Wow, that's cool,” Tom said. “I've seen lightning before, but not on my land.”

Now, he is planning to install an air-conditioning unit.


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