SRP crews help connect 56 Navajo homes to electricity for the first time
May 14, 2022, 7:15 AM
(Salt River Project Photo)
(Salt River Project Photo)
PHOENIX — After four weeks of 16-hour workdays, the Salt River Project lineman successfully connected 56 Navajo families and their homes to electric service, according to a press release.
Despite unfamiliar lands with rough terrain and weather, SRP was able to power the houses in Arizona’s Navajo Nation with electricity for the first time ever.
SRP line crews returned home on Sunday after working in the northeastern part of Arizona since April 2, the release said.
The crew was one of 14 volunteer utility crews from across 10 states in the country to participate in the “Light Up Navajo” project led by the American Public Power Association and Navajo Tribal Utility Authority.
“Light Up Navajo is an initiative to bring power to all the resident on Navajo Nation,” Wayne Wisdom, senior director of distribution grid services at SRP, said in a release. “The vision back in 2019 was to solicit neighboring utility support primarily from public power utilities like SRP to help build the infrastructure to serve the community.”
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SRP line crews constructed about 12 miles of distribution lines, set 193 poles and strung 13 miles of overhead wire during the monthlong effort, the release said.
The project is set to finish in the third week of June, giving a total of 200 Native American families electricity in their homes.
More than a dozen employees participated in “Light Up Navajo,” marking the second time SRP has volunteered since the project’s start in 2019.
