Ramah, Pine Hill schools’ electrical problems spotlighted

GALLUP

Legislation that will approve the allocation of $3.6 million for the upgrade/replacement of a high-voltage electricity system for the Ramah Navajo School Board/Pine Hill schools is currently traveling through government offices for final approval.

The Budget and Finance Committee approved the bill on Tuesday to move it onto the Naabik’iyáti’ Committee. If Naabi approves it then it go before the Navajo Nation Council.

The bill would allocate the total of $3.6 million from the Unreserved, Undesignated Fund to the Division of Community Development to carry out the project.

However, Delegate Jamie Henio said he is working to get an amendment that will Instead allocate money from the Sihasin Fund.

“This problem has existed for many years on the school campus of the Pine Hill Schools, which has been interfering with the education of our students there at Pine Hill, K to 12 students,” Henio, sponsor of the legislation, said.

Henio said the school has reached a point to where they are asking the Navajo Nation for assistance to correct the issue of outdated underground electrical lines that have been causing numerous problems.

Ramah School Board Inc. Superintendent David Nez attended the meeting and discussed some of the details as to why there is a need for funding to fix the electrical lines.

He said the school board had originally contacted Continental Divide Electric who said the school had a major issue and referred them to 4G Electric.

Nez said the issues 4G Electric showed him revolved around an electric manhole.

The problems included high voltage wires submerged in water, racks that were corroded away, and the manhole was an illegal one.

He was told by the crew that manholes are supposed to be 10 feet in diameter. However, the manhole on Pine Hill campus was only 4 feet in diameter.

The crew had to shut down the entire electrical system on campus and began their assessment. They soon found a major cable that was burned out.

“The company (4G Electric) was here for three weeks and they did a complete assessment, they found numerous concentrate neutral grounding cable, they were either failing or corroded away and this causes unstable voltage,” Nez said.

He said this unstable voltage has been burning out HVAC units, computers, compressors, and well motors.

“If we’re in a municipality like Gallup or Albuquerque, we would have been red-flagged and shut down,” Nez said.

Other problems that were found included electrical manholes were not rated for high voltage and were illegal to use. This caused the crew to get shocked multiple times while handling the manhole covers due to induction of electricity building up because of no grounding.

The issue of exposed wires was another concern.

“On the secondary side of transformers, there’s about an inch to two inches of exposed wire,” Nez said. “They (4G Electric) said there’s one right outside the building I’m sitting at right now. If a kid pokes their finger in there, they could be electrocuted so we had to put a temporary fencing around them.”

The electrical problems and dangers do not stop there.

He also said the electrical panels in the switch gear are failing and they do not meet the requirements and over-current protection does not exist in many service locations on campus.

There is also the issue of illegal panel boards and switch gears being used, some of these being installed inside transformers which is illegal.

The electrical problems have gotten to the point where the water system is being impacted on campus.

“When I first moved to this campus, I noticed that we had a lot of electrical outages and then the water would go out too,” Nez said. “We found out later, when the electrical company started assessing, that this was due to the unstable current that was running to our water well and tripping off the motor.”

Ramah Navajo School Board Facility Maintenance Director Wylie Clawson spoke about his own experience and held many of the same feelings and concerns as Nez.

Clawson said there has been many days where school had to be canceled because of electrical outages. He also said the HVAC outages caused the summers to be hot and the winters to be cold inside classrooms.

“For Mr. Nez and I, the main priority is for us to be able to offer students the opportunity to come to school so they can continue to be educated in a in a building that’s comfortable and reliable,” Clawson said.

“We haven’t been able to do either one of those things consistently since I’ve started here,” he said. “I’ve been the facilities maintenance director for a little over seven years and it’s very frustrating.”

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