The San Carlos Irrigation Project utility is working on improvements to its power system, including a new map to show where outages occur across Central Arizona.
The San Carlos Irrigation Project (SCIP) is run by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and provides electricity for thousands of people across the central part of the state, including Coolidge, Casa Grande, and Florence.
A BIA spokesperson said SCIP is working on improvements to the power system, including recently replacing 100 wood poles with ductile iron poles.
In an email, a spokesperson said the new poles are more resistant to wind, storms, and heat from wildfires.
Kylan Young is a SCIP customer who has been frustrated with what he calls ill maintenance of the company's power poles.
He started a petition last summer to try and get the attention of leaders.
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"Whenever there's a storm, it's not a matter of if, but a matter of when the power is going out," Young said.
The ABC15 Investigators have covered concerns around frequent power outages that have led to lawmakers calling for a federal investigation into SCIP.
It is unclear how many more SCIP poles need to be replaced, but we were told these iron ones are more durable.
"We've been able to get some updates done,” said Jessie Durham, “Honestly, not near as many as we'd like to.”
Durham is the regional director for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and she admits there are challenges with the federal government running a utility company.
"The power business is not the main business of the Bureau of Indian Affairs,” Durham said, “We find ourselves, as you know, looking at possibly divestiture because this project has gotten larger than we really ever intended it to, to get.”
The ABC15 Investigators also learned that customers should see lower costs this summer because SCIP has changed how it buys power from other companies. The utility provider used to buy its power on a month-to-month basis.
"We've already bought power all the way to August of 2027," Durham said. "So we've taken off the purchase cost adjuster, just brought the rates back down to lower than they've been for the last two summers."
