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

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By LINDSAY WHITEHURST

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — 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.

FULL story at link.

Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/37a592acb7c7424ea6290e4114766443/deal-bring-electricity-over-1000-navajo-nation

[asjr]

1. I had no idea, even at my elderly age, that this has been

going on for years. People who are the original caretakers of this country not having what they deserve is a crime in itself. I want to run away from this country at times especially if Trump wins the presidency. I am not really religious but this time I will pray for the Indians electricity and run Trump off the face of this earth.

[cannabis_flower]

2. It is hard to believe

that there are people in the US who don't have electricity.

[Wellstone ruled]

3. Know the area quite well.

The State of Utah has oppressed this area because of the culture. Politicians from Arizona and Utah have for decades raped the land for minerals and refused to invest in the local tribes. If you know the area,you understand the Racial bias and down right hatred of the Navajo Peoples by the White Community.

[Stuart G]

4. Thank You for your post...Hatred..powerful..!!!!! k and r..

NO ELECTRICITY???? Think about that? because of ..........Hatred...

Everyone in this country, yes everyone...should know about this hatred...and what it has done..

Read this....Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee., by Dee Brown..1970..

available at your local library or at a book store..

[Wellstone ruled]

7. I know what it is like to grow up without Electricty or running water.

Doing home work by oil lamp or lantern. And yes,there were others I'am sure,but in today's world and with a major Power Station on Navajo land and named after their Native Tribe,only a few miles away. Yup,we as taxpayers paid for the Transmission Lines to carry that electric power to Phoenix and this powerline travels through the Navajo Reservation. And the real kicker,we as taxpayers paid for and maintain a water pipe line from Page to Phoenix in order for their city to have a running river in the desert.

[Judi Lynn]

12. So horrid hearing that about Utah. White people stole the country, murdered the citizens

instead of treating them with respect and dealing like civilized people instead of slaughtering them all, refusing to even "share" the only home original people knew, and these murderous clowns have kept that hatred going all these centuries later.

So many vicious idiots living on stolen land they murdered to get.

Thank you for posting your remarks. It's so important people hear the truth at some point in their lives.

[Wellstone ruled]

14. All in the name of Joseph Smith.

And they call that Religion?

[Demonaut]

5. next, running water!

and I don't mean a river

WTF, we have a third world nation in our borders?
This is shameful

[Wellstone ruled]

8. Been in third world nations,

and the Navajo Reservation looks very similiar.

[JI7]

6. The govt should have been doing this all along

[Judi Lynn]

13. Absolutely so true. It was barbaric not to include the original citizens. n/t

[warrprayer]

9. Sad that this is possible

For anyone to have to live without basic necessities, let alone people who we screwed over so horribly.

[gwheezie]

10. Poverty in rural America is invisible

I live in the woods in Virginia. There are some people here with no electricity or indoor plumbing. I volunteer for a local church that does a free health clinic twice a year.

[SheriffBob]

11. the republican view of this story is

that it is about personal responsibility.