Power lines belonging to the Pacific Gas and Electric utility company.
SAN CARLOS APACHE RESERVATION, Arizona. – San Carlos Apache Chairman Terry Rambler wants answers after the northern half of the reservation in southeastern Arizona was without power for nearly a day after a storm destroyed a key power transmission line.
“This type of blackout is usually associated with developing countries, not the United States,” Rambler said in a statement Monday.
Tribal officials say the power line goes down regularly, leaving residents and businesses without electricity sometimes for days. Saturday’s outage cut off cellphone service, shut down two community wells and forced the hospital to use a backup generator, the tribe said.
A tribal emergency response team set up an emergency shelter and provided residents with water and ice before power was restored early Sunday afternoon.
Rambler said the tribe has repeatedly asked federal authorities to replace the power line and provide better access to it. The delay in restoring power was due in part to the rough terrain that emergency responders had to traverse to reach the downed lines, the tribe and the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) said.
Rambler will meet with Interior Secretary Debra Haaland in Washington next month to discuss financing solutions to prevent future defaults, he said.
The transmission line, in a remote area between Coolidge Dam and Winkelman, dates back to 1924, when the BIA created the San Carlos Irrigation Project to provide electricity to residents on and off the reservation and irrigation water and pumps to private landowners.
Still owned by the BIA, it is one of three such utilities in the country. The other two serve the Colorado River Indian Tribes in Arizona and California and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes in Montana.
The San Carlos project relies primarily on its customer base to finance operations and maintenance and has no authority to borrow money for repairs or major improvements, BIA spokesman Joshua Barnett said in a statement Wednesday.
Funds from the federal infrastructure act — $3 million over the past three years — are helping with repairs, improvements and replacements to the system, the agency said. The BIA is also conducting a study on adjusting rates for electric customers, a process that includes public comment, the agency said.
Other Native American tribes have long struggled with infrastructure deficiencies, such as electricity, running water and broadband access.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Indian Energy works with tribes to finance projects aimed at making their existing systems more resilient and transitioning to clean energy. Between 2010 and 2022, the office invested over $120 million in more than 210 energy projects across the United States.
Map of the San Carlos Apache Reservation:
