Line workers from Delaware’s municipally owned electric utilities spent recently spent a week in the sprawling Navajo nation as part of a project to connect members to the grid.
The effort from the Delaware Municipal Electric Corp. is part of Light Up Navajo, a long-running project of the tribal utility and the American Public Power Association.
The Navajo Nation, which is roughly 14-times the size of Delaware, has thousands of families without electric power, with the tribal utility not having the resources to add many homes each year. The nation spans an area that includes portions of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.
The tribal utility does not have the resources to make much headway in getting electricity to many isolated areas.
The Delaware crew included personnel from Newark, Seaford and Smyrna.
Municipal electric utilities, like their private counterparts, are used to working with other crews, thanks to mutual aid agreements that come when severe storms leave extensive damage.
