Shiprock power supply in jeopardy

Chapter seeks $2.5 million from N.M. for new substation

By JIM SNYDER

SANTA FE - It is just a matter of time before an aging 42-year-old electrical transmission substation in Shiprock will blow. It would result in permanent power outages for as many as 10,000 people north of the San Juan River in Shiprock, Hogback and adjoining chapters west of Farmington.

By Jim Snyder

Rep. Ray Begaye

A blackout, which would strike without warning, would hit 2,800-metered customers – including the Northern Navajo Medical Center, said two engineers with the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority in Ft. Defiance, Ariz.

That would mean no more TV and DVDs,refrigerated food, kidney-dialysis machines, night school at Diné College, basketball games at Shiprock High School, grocery stores, streetlights and stoplights.

“The risk (of a power failure) is much greater than we anticipated,” said state Rep. Ray Begaye, D-Shiprock. “If the present power failed it is going to be hard to put back up. The waiting time period will probably be three months to a year to get the power back up to standard, which will cause devastation to all the local residents.”

Begaye has asked Gov. Bill Richardson and the legislature for $2.5million to modernize Shiprock’s power system. The current substation is so stressed that NTUA dare not add any new customers. However, despite the emergency, the money has not yet been appropriated in the current legislative session nor from Richardson’s fourth-floor office at the Roundhouse in Santa Fe.

The cash-strapped Navajo Nation cannot afford to pay for a new substation. Further, NTUA, the tribe’s nonprofit utility company, cannot borrow money to pay for capital improvements due to a massive backlog of outstanding work orders. However, NTUA has put a $300,000 down payment on the new substation, which would be three times as large as the old substation, said Sam Woods, a NTUA electrical engineering supervisor.

Even if purchased today, the substation would take a year to build before being transported to Shiprock and put online.

A $2.5 million request
Shiprock Chapter President Duane “Chili” Yazzie, former Navajo Council Delegate Wallace Charley of Shiprock, Begaye and NTUA met with Brian Condit, Richardson’s deputy chief of staff, Feb. 2 at the Roundhouse, to request funds for the project.

Condit said, after listening to their problem, that he would ensure their request for the $2.5 million ended up on Richardson’s desk. However, he was non-committal about how the legislature, nearing the end of its 60-day finance session, was divvying up some $720 million in surplus oil and gas revenue for the state’s numerous capital outlay projects – all of which are considered priorities by their respective lawmakers.

“I don’t know what the senate is getting to do to us right now,” Condit said, adding Richardson would have to wait and see how much the House and Senate would leave the governor to spend, before he could prioritize his surplus spending requests. Everything is in negotiations between the House and the Senate right now, he added.

Begaye said in an interview that he has also gone to the Legislature requesting the $2.5 million in case the governor’s office does not come through.

“I’ve written letters to all the leaders on the House side. I’ve visited with Speaker Ben Lujan, a Democrat who has been a very strong supporter of Native American causes,” Begaye said, adding the funding request could end up in the house’s main budget. “It’s not too much, $2.5 million. Comparative to (Richardson’s) Space Port, $2.5 million is just a drop in the budget.”

No new customers
NTUA cannot supply additional power to anyone north of the San Juan River – homes, businesses or agencies – including to the Home for Women and Children’s new domestic violence shelter in Shiprock due to the overloaded aging substation. The chapter estimates $41 million of projects are under development.

“The system we have now will not generate power to any of these developments,” Yazzie said.

“You guys are surrounded by the biggest power generators in the country,” said Condit, finding irony in the fact that they supply power to major cities throughout the Southwest, yet small communities in the shadows of the power plants are left high and dry.

Condit was referring to the nearby Four Corners power plant in Upper Fruitland, the San Juan Generating Station in Kirtland and the proposed Sithe Global Desert Rock Energy power plant 30 miles south of Shiprock. The two existing plants and the proposed plant are not owned by the Navajo Nation. All three, including the proposed plant, are part of a nationwide electrical grid system and do not directly supply nearby communities.

The problem is not with the power grid however. Rather, it is the electrical substation that takes power off the grid and transforms it out into the communities.

NTUA cannot borrow money
In response to further questions by Condit, NTUA said it was not able to bond money to pay for capital improvements. NTUA engineer Srinivasa Venigalla said NTUA has not been able to borrow money from Rural Utility Services for more than five years – since they have 600 outstanding work orders in the hopper.

“We have some difficulties closing out the work orders. We moved to a new accounting system. So we have to catch up with our projects. We are unable to borrow any money,” Venigalla said.

Condit then asked how NTUA gets its money.

“(NTUA) has a rate base that basically is for operation and maintenance of the system, (but) most capital improvement projects have to be funded from external sources,” Venigalla said, making it clear that utility fees charged to customers barely cover the cost of providing electricity – and provide nothing in an emergency.

“NTUA, the tribal enterprise, has no cash balance, nothing to encumber these projects against. In other words, the business is not well,” Begaye said to Condit.

It’s not if, but when
“If anything goes wrong with the substation, all of them are without electricity,” said Venigalla, comparing the substation to an old car that may decide to stop running tomorrow morning or just keep running for a while longer.

“If it ever fails, it is really tough to bring the supply back on,” he said, adding a NTUA truck, carrying an emergency mobile transmission substation on its bed, could not easily reach Substation 1, off U.S. 64, because houses stand in the way and the access road is poor.

Substation 1 is in such bad shape that NTUA has to run large fans on it during the summer because it is so hot,” Yazzie said. Further, the current power supply is irregular. “We get fluctuations in the system, blackouts, because the system is up to capacity,” he added.

Making matters worse is that Substation 2 on the south side of the San Juan River is not compatible with the Substation 1 on the north side of the river. If there is an emergency, power cannot be drawn from Substation 2.

Shiprock must now play the waiting game, betting $2.5 million will materialize from the state and a new substation is purchased and put online – before the power dies.

“This Shiprock community needs a (new) substation,” Begaye said. “This is a priority.

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