Deal to bring electricity to over 1,000 on Navajo Nation

SALT LAKE CITY — More than 1,000 Navajos who live without electricity in their homes soon could get power for the first time as the tribal utility buys a system of rural Utah substations and electrical lines under the terms of a decades-old deal with a power company.

Across the 27,000 square-mile Navajo Nation, an estimated 15,000 people live off the grid of a utility considered among the most basic for most Americans.

One of them is 59-year-old Annie Hamm. She recently had a knee replacement, but she can't use the physical therapy machines from her doctors because they need electricity. She uses coolers to store food and drives to a gas station daily to buy ice to keep it from spoiling in the summer heat. At night she and her husband use flashlights to see.

Like many without electricity, she gets some power from a solar panel, but says it's unreliable. Some others use gas generators, but for many, being without home electricity also means no running water.

Read more: http://www.currentargus.com/story/news/2016/08/04/deal-bring-electricity-over-1000-navajo-nation/88272248/