New NTUA boss faces big challenge
By Bill Donovan
Special to the Times
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Some 18,000 families across the Navajo Reservation will be watching with interest to see how good a job Walter Haase will do as general manager of the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority.
These families live in some of the most remote parts of the reservation and have been trying for years - in some cases, for decades - to get electrical service from NTUA.
And this isn't counting the thousands more who are seeking water, natural gas and wastewater hookups.
Haase, who has been on the job for six weeks now, said it's one of his priorities to get as many of these families hooked up to electricity as he can.
But that task depends on a lot of factors out of his control, including the amount Congress provides in grants, and how well chapters do convincing the states to funnel community development block grants their way.
He estimates that it will cost $85 million to bring electrical hookups to every Navajo family that wants one.
NTUA, with an annual budget of $90 million, needs most of its extra revenues to upgrade an aging infrastructure. That leaves Congress to ride to the rescue.
If the $85 million figure sounds familiar, it was the amount that NTUA and congressional leaders came up with some seven years ago as the amount needed to bring electricity to all Navajo homes that lack it.
Congress addressed this problem in other remote areas of the country in the 1930s by creating the Rural Electrification Administration, which was supposed to hook up all of the houses in the country.
But Haase said they forgot the Navajos. Tens of millions of dollars were spent bringing electricity to other areas but not a cent to the Navajo Reservation.
So in about 2000, congressional leaders said they would correct this oversight and would appropriate $85 million to extend electrical service to all Navajo families.
But something happened - 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq and other priorities intervened.
Haase said the $85 million shrank to actual appropriation of only $8 million. And while some 1,100 Navajo families did get electricity, another 1,100 families were added to the list and NTUA finds itself in the same predicament it was in at the start of the new century.
This year, the federal grant will be just $1.9 million, to be divided among the NTUA districts.
While the goal is to get as many Navajo families hooked up as possible with these funds, Haase said that NTUA officials would also look at how long families have been on waiting lists.
It's quite a hello for a guy who wasn't even supposed to be the new general manager.
Haase was on NTUA's short list, but the winning candidate turned down the position after NTUA announced his appointment, apparently having second thoughts about living in such a remote area as the Navajo Reservation.
Haase, who is non-Navajo, said he was asked during the first go-around to come for an interview but turned the request down. When NTUA officials came around the second time, he agreed and ended up taking the job.
NTUA had been operating with an interim manager for more than two years.
Haase comes with 17 years of senior-level executive experience in the electric utility industry, most recently as head of the utility serving Jamestown, N.Y., for eight years.
Before that, Haase spent two years operating a natural gas and electric utility in the Rocky Mount, N.C., area, which served about 46,000 customers.
NTUA has 50,000 electric, 34,000 water, 13,000 wastewater, and 7,000 natural gas customers.
Haase is taking over direction of NTUA at a time when no controversial issues are outstanding.
Huge rate increases - caused by the failure of NTUA to impose routine rate increases on its customers for almost 10 years - caused an uproar when first mentioned in 2006 but customers seem to have adjusted to them.
He said there are no plans for any rate hikes this year but customers can expect small increases next year so that the enterprise doesn't get into a situation where it again has to impose major rate increases in order to stay solvent.
There are also plans to revamp the utility's computer system but Haase said the billing system won't be affected so there is no cause to fear a repeat of the billing snafus of several years ago when the computer system was installed.