Arizona tribe wants feds to replace electrical transmission line after a 21-hour power outage

SAN CARLOS APACHE RESERVATION, Ariz. (AP) — San Carlos Apache Tribe Chairman Terry Rambler wants answers after the northern half of the southeastern Arizona tribe’s reservation was without electricity for 21 hours last weekend following a storm that blew down a major electrical transmission line.

“This kind of electrical failure is usually equated with developing countries, not the United States,” Rambler said in a statement Monday.

Tribal officials call the transmission line obsolete, saying it routinely fails and leaves reservation residents and businesses without power — sometimes for days.

The tribe said it has repeatedly asked federal authorities to replace the transmission line located in a remote area between Coolidge Dam and Winkelman.

Rambler has written a letter to Interior Secretary Deborah Haaland about the power outage.

Next month, Rambler is scheduled to meet Haaland in Washington, D.C., to talk about funding solutions to prevent future outages.

On Aug. 5, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Indian Energy Policy and Programs issued two notices of intent to release a combined $30 million in grants.

One would support tribal clean energy planning and development and the other would support tribal colleges and universities planning to transition to clean energy.

Between 2010 and 2022, the Office of Indian Energy invested over $120 million in more than 210 tribal energy projects implemented across the contiguous 48 states and Alaska.

But there’s been little talk about investments being made for modernizing electrical grid systems on the San Carlos reservation that encompasses 1.8 million acres across parts of three Arizona counties.

The San Carlos Irrigation Project was established in 1924 by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to provide electricity to residents on and off the reservation and irrigation water and pumping to private landowners.