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By Joshua A. Bickel and Suman Naishadham

The Associated Press

HALCHITA, Utah 鈥� After a five-year wait, Lorraine Black and Ricky Gillis heard rumblings that an electrical crew would reach their home on the sprawling Navajo Nation reservation.

In five days, their home would be connected to the power grid, and they would no longer need to rely on a few solar panels and propane lanterns. No longer would the CPAP machine Gillis uses for sleep apnea or his home heart monitor (used to transmit information to doctors 400 miles away) face interruptions due to intermittent power. It also meant Black and Gillis would be able to use more than a few appliances 鈥� such as a fridge, a TV, and an evaporative cooling unit 鈥� at the same time.

鈥淲e鈥檙e one of the luckiest people who get to get electric,鈥� Gillis said.

Many Navajo families still live without running water and electricity due to historic neglect and the challenge of connecting services to far-flung homes on the 27,000-square-mile 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 in 2019. But when the coronavirus pandemic started ravaging the tribe and everything except essential services was shut down on the reservation, it further stalled the process.

Their wait highlights the persistent difficulties in electrifying every Navajo home, even with recent injections of federal money for tribal infrastructure and services. Meanwhile, extreme heat in the Southwest intensified by聽climate change聽adds to the urgency.

鈥淲e are a part of America that a lot of the time feels kind of left out,鈥� said Vircynthia Charley, district manager of the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority, a not-for-profit utility that provides electricity, water, wastewater, natural gas and solar energy services.

For years, the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority has worked to get more Navajo homes connected to the grid faster. Under a program called Light Up Navajo, which uses a mix of private and public funding, outside utilities from across the U.S. send electric crews to help connect homes and extend power lines.

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

About 32 percent of Navajo homes still have no electricity. Connecting the remaining 10,400 homes on the reservation would cost $416 million, said Deenise Becenti, the utility鈥檚 government and public affairs manager.

This year, Light Up Navajo connected 170 more families to the grid. Since the program started in 2019, 882 Navajo families have had their homes electrified. If the program stays funded, connecting every home on the reservation would take 26 more years, Becenti said.

Those that get connected immediately reap the benefits. Until this month, Black and Gillis鈥� solar panels that the utility installed a few years ago would last about two to three days before their battery drained in cloudy weather. The panels would take two more days to recharge.

鈥淵ou had to really watch the watts and whatever you鈥檙e using on a cloudy day,鈥� Gillis said.

Then a volunteer power crew from Colorado helped install 14 power poles while the tribal utility authority drilled holes six feet deep for the poles. The crew then ran a wire about a mile down a red sand road from the main power line to the couple鈥檚 home.

鈥淭he lights are brighter,鈥� Black remarked after her home was connected.

In recent years, significantly more federal money has been allocated for tribes to improve infrastructure on reservations, including $32 billion from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 鈥� of which Navajo Nation received $112 million for electric connections. The Navajo tribal utility also received $17 million through the Biden administration鈥檚 Inflation Reduction Act to connect families to the electric grid. But it can be slow to see the effects of that money on the ground due to bureaucracy and logistics.

Next spring, the tribal utility authority hopes to connect 150 additional homes, including the one occupied by Priscilla and Leo Dan.

For the couple, having grid electricity at their home near Navajo Mountain in Arizona would end a nearly 12-year wait. They currently live in a recreational vehicle elsewhere closer to their jobs but have worked on their home on the reservation for years. With power there, they could spend more time where Priscilla grew up and where her dad still lives.

It would make life simpler, Priscilla said.

鈥淏ecause otherwise, everything, it seems like, takes twice as long to do,鈥� she said.

Editor鈥檚 note: Naishadham reported from Washington.