Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
SALT LAKE CITY — For about 15 years, Navajo Nation leaders have been seeking funds to build a new 38-mile road to the remote Navajo Mountain area on the reservation in extreme southeast Utah.
"Our priority has always been infrastructure," said Crystalyne Curley, a member of the Navajo Nation Council and speaker of the body, at a press conference Thursday at the Utah Capitol in Salt Lake City.
The leaders approached Utah lawmakers again for help with one of the preliminary steps — $2 million for a $4 million environmental impact study — but received word the money won't make it into the 2025 budget, now getting the final touches. Still, the push continues, and Curley and Shaandiin Parrish, another Navajo Nation leader, made the case for a new road at the meeting with reporters and emphasized their interest in teaming with Utah leaders to make the $141 million project happen.
"As a nation, as leadership, as speaker of the council, we're not going to give up on our people, even if it has to take 20 or 25 years, 30 years, just to ask for $2 million," said Curley. As is, she said, 80% of the roads in the Navajo Nation — which covers some 27,000 square miles of Utah, New Mexico and Arizona where the three states meet — are unpaved. The Utah section of the Navajo Nation sits within the confines of San Juan County.
Parrish, chairwoman of the Navajo Nation's Budget and Finance Commission, said they've also reached out to Utah's delegation in Washington, D.C. "But we really need a united front from the Legislature and the Navajo Nation in order to make a stronger voice and commitment to this road," she said. Federal lawmakers have said the Navajo Nation officials need to reach common ground with Utah lawmakers on the project before the feds will pitch in money.
For now, traveling between the Navajo Mountain area, where some 500 people live, and Kayenta, a Navajo Nation locale across the Utah state line in Arizona that's the nearest commercial center, takes about two hours. That means a Navajo Mountain patient needing an ambulance ride would face a four-hour wait before making it to a Kayenta medical facility — two hours before the ambulance arrives, then another two hours to get to the Arizona locale.
The new road section would cut the one-way trip time to around 30-45 minutes, Parrish said, and speed access to Blanding, the largest city in San Juan County. Navajo Mountain residents currently have to take a circuitous route through Arizona to get to any other locale in Utah.
What's more, Parrish maintains that the road section would serve as an economic booster to southern Utah, aside from benefitting Navajo Mountain residents. It would improve access to Monument Valley within the Navajo Nation and draw tourists to the area.
The St. George area is in line for an injection of funding for infrastructure, she said, so "why not continue to prioritize southern Utah, including this Navajo Mountain road?"
Curley also noted the state taxes Navajo Nation residents pay to the state of Utah, some $10 million a year, in making the case for help with the road proposal.
Parrish and Curley had met earlier Thursday with representatives from the Legislature's Executive Appropriations Committee, when they received word funding for the Navajo Nation road project would not be included in Utah's 2025 budget. Utah officials told them they couldn't find any money to spare for the initiative.
"First we were asking for $3 million, then we renegotiate it to $2.9 million. Now it's at $2 million," Curley said, alluding to changes made to their funding requests over the years. "So I don't know how far we have to lower that cost for the state or the Executive Appropriations (Committee) to make it a priority."
The Utah funds, if supplied, would complement the $2 million the Navajo Nation would pitch in for the $4 million environmental study
A project synopsis prepared by the Seven County Infrastructure Coalition says the proposed Navajo Nation road segment would have many benefits. The coalition promotes cooperative planning in Carbon, Daggett, Duchesne, Uintah, San Juan, Emery and Sevier counties in Utah.
"Expanded transportation infrastructure would improve transportation efficiency, drive economic growth, create corridors that could be used for multiple utilities, improve emergency response time and access to services and significantly improve the quality of life within the area," reads a synopsis prepared by the body.
A second proposed road corridor to Navajo Mountain measures 52 miles and would cost $190 million. But the 38-mile, $141 million option is the preferred corridor.
