Without Borders North America
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Navajo Nation – Bringing electricity and service connections into the homes
EWWBNA in Navajo Nation
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Bringing electricity and service connections into the homes.
Caption
At an international partners meeting in Madrid, EWWBNA President Chris Erikson proposed including North American tribal nations to EWWBNA’s geographic outreach. Shortly after, a volunteer from Local 1249 Syracuse, and a member of Onondaga Nation, connected EWWBNA to Navajo Nation, leading to a partnership with the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority (NTUA) to field volunteers to the reservation to assist with home wiring and service connections.
There are over 13,000 Navajo homes without electricity, which represents one third of homes on the reservation and more than 75% of all homes in the USA that are not connected. NTUA General Manager Walter Haase reported to the EWWBNA board that the challenge is nearly a billion-dollar problem and that alone it could take NTUA 50 years to connect everyone, but he hopes to reduce that down to 15 to 20 years with grants and support from EWWBNA and others.
Since 2019 several utilities, members of the American Public Power Association, have volunteered linemen crews to assist NTUA bring electricity to communities in need in a program called “Light Up Navajo”. This program has been very successful, bringing power lines in reach of nearly a thousand homes. Though many, if not most, Navajo homes without electricity have no inside wiring. This is where EWWBNA comes in.
Last June, Erikson led an EWWBNA delegation to Navajo Nation and met with NTUA leadership and staff and visited communities in need throughout the reservation. It was agreed EWWBNA would send several crews of volunteer wiremen in the fall of 2024 to focus on house wiring, complementing Light Up Navajo. Homeowners apply through NTUA to be part of the program.
Between September and November, 21 volunteers were deployed on schedule and wired dozens of homes. The volunteers were organized into crews of three wiremen and served two-week missions braving rough, offroad terrain to reach the homes. As homeowners turned on lights for the first time, many shed tears of joy, making for an emotional experience for the volunteers, seeing firsthand the life-changing results of volunteering their expertise. Also, with the help of Edwin Lopez, retired Executive Director of the New York Electrical Contractors Association, EWWBNA received donations of tools and equipment valued in tens of thousands of dollars from Milwaukee, Graybar, and over a dozen NYECA contractors. And Thorogood Boots, union-made in the USA, has agreed to gift a pair of work boots to every volunteer working on the project.
Given the success of the pilot, EWWBNA plans to deploy more volunteers in 2025, and several IBEW locals and individual members have reached out to join the effort. The program will run between April and June and between September and November. Currently, EWWBNA is only fielding wiremen, but it is in discussions with NTUA to field linemen crews, using NTUA vehicles and equipment. Also, utility locals are encouraged to contact their utilities to sound out their interest in joining the Light Up Navajo initiative which the NTUA calls a “mutual aid program without the storm”.
Interested volunteers can reach out to EWWBNA through our contact page or contact their local union for more information.