On Navajo Nation, a push to electrify more homes on the vast reservation

Associated Press

HALCHITA, Utah (AP) — Before the coronavirus pandemic, Lorraine Black and Ricky Gillis started filing paperwork to get their rural home in Navajo Nation connected to the electric grid. Like 10,000 other Navajo households, the couple didn’t have electricity, and instead used a combination of solar-generated electricity and propane lanterns to light their home.  As the pandemic ravaged the tribe, all but essential services were shut down on the reservation that lies in parts of Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah, and the process stalled. Nearly five years later, the couple’s mobile home in Halchita, Utah, was connected to the grid this month, highlighting the persistent challenges in electrifying every home across the vast, impoverished tribal reservation.