Indianz.Com > News > Cronkite News: Navajo families line up for heating help
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Navajo program again distributes reservation coal to heat tribal homes
Wednesday, December 9, 2020
Cronkite News
WASHINGTON – For decades, coal from the Navajo Nation helped deliver water and helped power homes and businesses throughout Arizona and the Southwest.
Now, some of that coal is being used to heat Navajo homes as well.
For the fifth straight year, the Community Heating Resource Program (CHRP) is helping Navajo residents stay warm through fall and winter months by distributing coal for free from the Navajo Mine – one ton at a time.
The program
kicked off this year on October 28 and will continue through spring. It was formally established by Navajo Transitional Energy Co., which owns the mine in Fruitland, New Mexico, in 2016.
“We’ve probably provided over 18,000 tons of coal to Navajo families,” since 2016, said Cortasha Upshaw, the mine’s community affairs coordinator, who also oversees the program. She said “about 8,900 tons of coal” were distributed last winter alone.
Good first day for NTEC's Community Heating Resource Program, 213 loaded vehicles with free coal. 41 different…
Posted by Navajo Transitional Energy Company on Monday, November 2, 2020
![kayenta mine](https://indianz.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/09/kayentamine.jpg)
Horseherder said comparing the industrial-scale burning of coal to the program’s small-scale distribution of a Navajo Nation resource to Navajo people is like comparing apples to oranges. “That coal belongs to Navajo,” she said. “That’s what Navajo were using that coal for (heat) all along … before big companies came in and started burning tons of it.” For more stories from Cronkite News, visit cronkitenews.azpbs.org.Volunteers with Chizh for Cheii are preparing to deliver firewood to elders on the Navajo Nation, where nearly 90 percent of homes rely on wood for heat. #ChizForCheii #CronkiteNews @ChizhForCheii @Loren_Anthony_ https://t.co/FRAaeujfen
— indianz.com (@indianz) December 8, 2020
Note: This story originally appeared on Cronkite News. It is published via a Creative Commons license. Cronkite News is produced by the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University.
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