SRP Line Crews Will Bring Electricity to Remote Homes in Navajo Nation for the Fifth Year – Crews Depart Saturday Morning
Media Invited to Cover Crew Send Off the Morning of April 6.
Click here for downloadable video to be used online or as a VO.
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Interviews with line workers are available.
WHAT:
Salt River Project is sending two crews to join lineworkers from 16 other states to bring electricity to families through the Light Up Navajo project. Fourteen SRP employees will have the opportunity to connect homes to the grid from April 6-20.
Salt River Project (SRP) and 39 utility companies from 16 states across the country are participating in a humanitarian effort to bring electricity to families within the Navajo Nation in Arizona, where 75 percent of all U.S. households without power are located. This initiative seeks to provide access to modern conveniences and improve the quality of life of families living in the Navajo Nation.
This marks the fifth campaign for this unique mutual-aid initiative organized jointly by the American Public Power Association and the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority, which is the public power utility serving the Navajo Nation.
SRP’s line crews will depart Tempe on the morning of April 6 to begin setting miles of wooden distribution poles and stringing conductors through the vast Navajo Nation.
Since the project launched in 2019, more than 700 homes in Navajo Nation now have electricity due to LUN efforts.
DEPARTURE:
Saturday, April 6 at 7:30 a.m.
Arrive as early as 6:30 a.m. to capture crews loading vehicles, interviews with participants and the caravan of large bucket trucks and SRP vehicles pulling out.
Morning live shots are available.
WHEN/WHERE:
SRP Tempe Service Center 110 W. Elliot Road in Tempe
(Media must provide identification to pass through a secured entrance.)
Public power utilities like SRP are donating manpower, equipment and/or materials. Of the 55,000 homes located on the 27,000 square mile Navajo Nation (roughly the size of West Virginia), approximately 14,000 homes still do not have electricity.
About NTUA
In 1959, NTUA started out as a small water utility in Shiprock, NM. In decades since, NTUA has grown into the largest multi-utility enterprise owned and operated by an American Indian tribe. NTUA is proud of its history and celebrates its progress. As a not-for-profit enterprise of the Navajo Nation, NTUA provides electric, water, wastewater, natural gas, off-grid solar, renewable energy generation, and communications services. NTUA takes deep pride in its work and maintains the commitment to provide the multi-utility needs of the Navajo Nation. In Navajo, the phrase “Niandeiilnish” means “We work for You.” In keeping with that principle, NTUA works for the People with teamwork and respect. That has been the primary mission since 1959.
About APPA
The American Public Power Association is the voice of not-for-profit, community-owned utilities that power 2,000 towns and cities nationwide. APPA represents public power before the federal government to protect the interests of the more than 49 million people that public power utilities serve, and the 93,000 people they employ. APPA advocates and advises on electricity policy, technology, trends, training and operations. The members strengthen their communities by providing superior service, engaging citizens and instilling pride in community-owned power.
SRP is a community-based, not-for-profit public power utility and the largest electricity provider in the greater Phoenix metropolitan area, serving approximately 1.1 million customers. SRP provides water to about half of the Valley’s residents, delivering more than 244 billion gallons of water (750,000 acre-feet) each year, and manages a 13,000-square-mile watershed that includes an extensive system of reservoirs, wells, canals and irrigation laterals.